Logic Game Grouping: Matching Templates Diagram | Explanation

As promised, I'm doing a blog post to demonstrate the templates (multiple main diagrams) for last week's Grouping: Matching Templates Logic Game, so here goes.

So, in the game, we have 7 projects. 2 in April, 3 in May, and 2 in June, giving us this layout of slots for each month:

Depending on whether you choose to make your templates refer to specific variables or simply to the categories of variables, you might want to put a "D" with a slash through it under June.

Our variables are:

Classifieds: C C
Electronics: A B
Weapons: D L R

So we can diagram our rules like this:

The options for the game are more limited than they might appear at first. The key is figuring out which rule or block to use to create your templates. You want to go from the most restricted variables and work your way towards the least restricted variables.

The vertical WW block and the vertical WE block could go on any of the 3 months, so they're actually pretty "loose," so we don't want to start there. We also don't want to make those the first variables we work with because there are 3 "W" variables: DLR, and 2 "E" variables: AB.

However, there are only 3 main possibilities for the Classifieds.

They could be on April and May:


on May and June:


or on April and June:


These are our 3 main possibilities, and every possible scenario will fall into one of these 3. You could leave off here, but I prefer to get more specific.

Let's start with the first - the 2 Classifieds on April and May.

In this possibility, we could have EW on May, and WW on June:


OR we could have WW on May and EW on June:


Now the 2nd main possibility - the 2 Classifieds on May and June.

In this possibility, we could have EW on April and WW on May:


OR we could have WW on April and EW on May:


Finally, 3rd main possibility - the 2 Classifieds on April and June.

In this possibility, we're forced to put EWW on May together (which satisfies the EW block and the WW block simultaneously).

The remaining E and the remaining W are interchangeable. One will go on April, and the other will go on June. Here's this possibility with W on April and E on June:


Here's the same possibility, only with E on April and W on June:


Of course, you can easily combine these two into one diagram with E/W on April and W/E on June:




In fact, you can also combine the 2 main possibilities for when we have 2 Classifieds on April and May. The only difference between these two possibilities is whether we have 2Ws in May and E on June or 2Ws in June and E on May. Combining them gives us:





We can also combine the 2 main possibilities for the 2 Classifieds on May and June in the same way:





These become our 3 main diagrams.


Just don't forget that D (the drone) can never be on June. Place D with a slash through it below June in each diagram.

If you prefer to diagram things more literally, you can diagram the game's main possibilities in the same way I've done throughout, only whenever you see "E", you can write "A/B", and whenever you see "W", you can write "D/L/R" (only don't forget that when "W" is on June, it's only "L/R" because D can't be there.

I actually prefer to do the game's templates (main setups/diagrams) by writing the categories rather than the specific variables. As you might imagine, diagramming the specific variables takes longer to write and looks a bit more cluttered. However, it might save you time by allowing you to avoid referring back to which variables fall within each category.

What's best? Try it both ways to determine your personal preference.

Leave your questions and thoughts in the comments!

Photo by donsolo / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0