Game: Mastermind

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aleacarv — 2008-07-24T21:44:54+00:00

Senha e Mini Senha (by brazilian's publisher Grow)

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Joseph Hill — 2008-07-22T22:49:35+00:00

Mastermind (as Crack the Code) at YourTurnMyTurn.com

Thread: Re: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

Advocator — 2008-07-01T01:31:03+00:00

Was updating my game collection on BGG and realized I had a copy of this. Seems like my Dad and your Mom thought a lot a like since I remember going through the same process you went through! I'm sure one day I'll be doing the same with my own kids.

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-05-17T16:35:17+00:00

Another Version of the game

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-05-17T16:07:35+00:00

Back of box

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-05-17T15:35:18+00:00

Components of one version

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haarrrgh — 2008-04-29T22:57:27+00:00

German box

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roxon — 2008-04-22T21:39:39+00:00

Back of the Scandinavian travel edition box

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roxon — 2008-04-22T21:38:14+00:00

Scandinavian travel edition

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freechinanow — 2008-04-15T23:24:45+00:00

Mastermind Gift Set (1978)

Thread: Re: Extra Challenge

Dave — 2008-03-29T05:32:53+00:00

WineDarkSea wrote:
We came up with this by accident when my son made a mistake marking one of my guesses.

Yeah, pretty much every game of Sleuth I've ever played inadvertantly used the same variant...

Thread: Re: Extra Challenge

WineDarkSea — 2008-03-29T02:50:29+00:00

We came up with this by accident when my son made a mistake marking one of my guesses. After my 5th guess, I knew he had made a mistake. After a couple more attempts, I figured out which one was the error. Now, I usually tell him to make one on purpose...

Thread: Re: Extra Challenge

psymann — 2008-03-27T00:29:08+00:00

What a neat idea. That might give me another few hours of amusement/challenge out of our many various copies of mastermind. I'd also needed more than just the 'clear' pegs. Thanks.

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Martin Ralya — 2008-02-23T00:48:01+00:00

A problem with the 1996 Pressman edition: The pieces never all fit back in the little tray

Thread: Re: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

russ — 2008-02-09T08:00:17+00:00

Good story. This was a very influential game for me as a kid also, and I remember taking it on family vacations and playing with other people we met along the way.

A month ago I started playing again, with an old set found tucked away. Nostalgia!

Thread: Re: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

D Erasmus — 2008-02-09T00:51:19+00:00

Excellent story. I have the same affection for Mastermind as you and use it as a core tool for teaching logic. We now have two boards so that each of us can be guesser and master at the same time. There is almost zero down time now with this game.

Thread: Re: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

leungd — 2008-02-08T17:05:28+00:00

Gabriel_V wrote:

Your mom rocks. I wish all parents taught their children like that.

Thanks, I'll be sure to pass the compliment on. My parents are really great and supportive. My dad is finally starting to take some time away from work, and they both came to visit me in LA a couple of weeks ago. When I was growing up, they were always adamant that I figure things out for myself---unlike the stereotypical Chinese parents, they didn't push me or pressure me at all. I didn't have a curfew. They always said, you're going to study hard at school because you want to and you think it's important. To get any spending money I had to get a crappy job at K-Mart. Even though it would have been easy, they really didn't want me to end up stuck working at the restaurant like the rest of the family. And there's nothing that builds character like working at a crappy job. You want to work at K-Mart for the rest of your life? No? Then you better do well at school.

Now my sister, on the other hand, she needed a little bit more supervision.

Just seeing those pictures of Mastermind brought back a lot of memories, and I can't believe I just impulsively wrote all this down to a bunch of strangers. I guess that's what's so great about BGG.

Thread: Re: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

Gabriel_V — 2008-02-08T02:32:38+00:00

leungd wrote:
She told me, “I’m not going to help you. You’re going to have to figure it out yourself. There’s no trick to it. Once you understand how to think about it, you’ll know. Use your head.”

Your mom rocks. I wish all parents taught their children like that.

Thread: Re: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

whac3 — 2008-02-07T19:52:30+00:00

One of my older sisters had this when I was a kid. I don't recall how old I was, but quite little [5-6 I think] and we used to play this game. It DEFINITELY hones the logic skills. First we started with the easy version where the pegs on the side designating right or wrong guesses corresponded to a particular hole on the board but quickly we dropped that. I know the ages I'm citing are younger than the official age by a good deal but as I reall I'd out-grown this by the time we moved back onto a boat which we did when I was eight.

Thread: Re: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

FrankM — 2008-02-07T19:13:58+00:00

It's been a long time since I played this as well.

An even bigger brain work out (especially for the aging and forgetful), is playing without the board, so that you must remember the coders responses to your guesses.

Thread: How a Mother Taught Her Son How to Think

leungd — 2008-02-07T15:57:38+00:00

I was helping out in the image sorting and came across some pictures of Mastermind, which brought back a flood of memories. Part of it is that for some time now, I’ve been realizing that I’m not as smart as I used to be. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, I’m only getting older and slower. In fact, I probably knew more in high school than I do now. I used to play Mastermind.

When I was a child, probably around eight years old, my father owned a restaurant and worked fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. In fact, he still does despite us telling him to stop and relax. This meant that he would come home late at night, eat a small dinner, watch the evening news, and then go to sleep. My mother would help out sometime, but she would manage to come home early to spend time with me and my little sister. Looking for something to do with us, one day she brought home a game that she bought at the store. Mastermind.

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Mastermind is a classic asymmetric logic/deduction game for two players. The board is long and has a shielded area on one side. The rest of the board is dominated by ten rows of empty code spaces to be used as guesses. One person plays the code maker. He picks a combination of four pegs from a possible six different colors. These are placed in a certain order behind the shield where the other player can’t see. (Since I was so young, we played a simpler variation where you could only use a color once. More advanced variations allow duplicate colors or even empty spaces, vastly increasing the code possibilities).

The second player is the code breaker. On his turn, he tries to guess the code by playing a color combination. The code maker then is forced to reveal some information---a black peg for each color that is the right color in the right position, and a white peg for each color that is the right color but in the wrong position. The code breaker then gets another guess, and so on, for a total of ten chances before losing. There’s nothing else to it. No dice. No cards. It’s just you and your mind and the game.

I had never played a game like this before. This was years before I got seriously into chess, and I was used to simple roll and move games like Monopoly or Game of Life. Ironically, Mastermind would end up teaching me more about life than Life would.

The first couple of times, I was completely lost as the code breaker. I had no idea what I was doing. I would play random color combinations, hoping to win by pure luck with each guess. In the beginning, I would try and pause a little bit before placing a colored peg down, trying to see if I can get any revealing information from her. Unfortunately, her poker face revealed nothing. In the end, it was up to me and my mind only. I started to get pretty frustrated. Even worse, when I was the code maker, I would sit there trying to scheme up some unbreakable secret code, only to see my mother solve it quickly.

“I hate this game,” I whined. “I never win. This isn’t fun. How do you always win?”

She told me, “I’m not going to help you. You’re going to have to figure it out yourself. There’s no trick to it. Once you understand how to think about it, you’ll know. Use your head.”

And you know…she was right. Over and over again, after staring at the board, finally something finally clicked. I started realizing that you couldn’t go right for the solution at the get go. In fact, sometimes you have to make a guess that you know isn’t the solution. But you know what? Losing that battle helps in winning the war. You can’t go for it all right at once. You devise a guess to test one thing at a time, until you can eventually put it all together.

Mastermind suddenly became fun to me. I would look forward to our nightly sessions. It wasn’t about me against my mother. It wasn’t even about winning. It was me exercising my mind. Each time I successfully solved a code, I could feel myself getting smarter. I loved just sitting there running through all the permutations in my head. Mastermind taught me how to think.

Now, twenty years later, some of my favorite gaming memories are playing Mastermind with my mother. I know that Mastermind is a “solved” system, but winning the game was never the point. The point was learning how to think. I have a career in science, but the lesson hasn’t left me. Now I design experiments or guesses that try to reveal some information about what I’m studying. Eventually, with enough experiments, I will have enough information to form a good guess or model as to what’s going on. Over time, I learn about the phenomena that I’m studying.

Years ago, I had enough time to play Mastermind, where I could just sit there and think. Now I’m constantly running around trying to think about everything and ending up thinking about nothing. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel as smart now. Maybe when I go home this Christmas, I’ll dig out Mastermind and give it another spin. I’m sure my mother would like that too.

Thread: Extra Challenge

WineDarkSea — 2007-12-25T01:25:39+00:00

The rules include one variant which allows vacant peg holes so that there is a seventh color. We call it 'clear' mostly due to our lack of creativity.

I was happy with this added challenge for a while, but needed more. The variant we came up with allows the codemaker to make a single scoring error one time during the game. A scoring error means not marking the codebreaker's guess correctly. Types of single errors include one wrong color peg, one peg missing, or one added peg.

For example, Using the code below:

If the codebreaker guessed:

The correct marking would be (or )

Possible single marking errors are:
/ / / etc.

With this variant, the codebreaker must determine where the error was made and what the error was as well as the correct code. It also adds a little strategy for the codemaker in trying to use the most challenging error. It is important to remember that only a single error on a single line is allowed. In general, it takes almost twice as many guesses using this variant compared to the original game.

Thread: Re: User Review

kdean1 — 2007-10-20T18:19:56+00:00

The pictures I see in the gallery here on the Geek are not marbles. They are colored pegs or rivets that look very much like marbles on the top.

Thread: Master of the Mind

zeruf — 2007-09-15T20:51:49+00:00

"Ha! Just a black and a white!" exclaimed Sam "You'll never beat me!"
George looked down is dismay. He was on the 7th row of mastermind and he still couldn't figure out anything. Usually he would have been doing beter, but for somereason his brain wasn't working too well today.
They were doing a best of 7 series where they each took a turn guessing and the player who took the least guesses won. Now Sam was winning the series 2-1, though he had gone first in this game it took him a whole 9 tries to figure it out. Even so it still didn't look too promising for George considering the state of his brain.
While George was still figuring out what to do, there was a knock on the door. He slowly got up still staring at the board until he left the dinning room. When he got to the door and opened it his eyes lit up. It was John Peterson, known to his friends as 'Master of the Mind'.
You probably now wonder and ask yourself, 'Why do they call him that?'. Well maybe it's because it takes him an average of 3.5 tries to solve mastermind; maybe, it's because he's so smart; or maybe it was just plain all they could think to call him. Whatever the reason George new John could help him.
Once the door had been opened John came in and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Playing mastermind... and I need your help."
"OK" said John in a way that made you know he wanted to.
They rushed into the dinning room. The board looked like this.
PHOTO
"Well first" quoted John "We'll start with the basics; let me see the board."
When John saw the board he yelled out in disbelief, "Wo! Are you having a bad day or something! Usually you would have figured in out by now with all the info you have."
Then without warning Sam started singing a very mixed up version of 'You had a bad day' "You had a bad day, I won the game, you tried to be me but it didn't work out."
George interupted, "Those are defenetly not the words."
"Oh well. They fit the situation!"
"What were you saying John?"
John studied the board again and then continued "Well, you know that red is in slot 2 because you've kept it there and there has always been a black. From that you asume that that's the only thing you ever got right! Now yellow you have tried everywhere except slot 3, so we'll put it there. From row 4 you figured out that no blues are on and that their isn't a second red. Green you also know it's not in because you tried it everywhere and it was always in the wrong spot. That leaves black and white, using the process of elimination...blacks in slot 1 and whites in slot 4."
"Well Sam" said George in quiet antisipation.
Sam stared for a few seconds and then said, "I don't want to play this anymore"
George and John laughed, The Master of the Mind had done it again.

Thread: Re: User Review

Bluenose — 2007-02-18T18:11:02+00:00

Maybe it's a British version, but the game that I have has pieces that look like rivets that drop into little holes. The game play is the same I would wager!

Thread: Re: User Review

TMuscle — 2007-02-17T01:53:44+00:00

Pegs? I don't see any pegs on the board. Just marble sets and places for the marbles. Is this a different game. I might also be mistaken but, all teh pictures I've seen have marble sets and places to put the marbles.

Thread: Can You Solve The Hidden Code?

MrEdCollins — 2005-07-21T07:16:11+00:00

The object of Mastermind is to solve a 'hidden' code consisting of colored pegs. You do this by making 'guesses' as to the correct identity of the code. Each guess results in appropriate feedback from your opponent. As you place each guess and receive additional feedback, the number of possible codes remaining becomes less and less until there is only one possible code left.

Regular Mastermind has four holes and six colored pegs for a total of 1,296 different possible permutations. If you allow the code breaker to place one of more 'blanks' in the code (think of the blank as being an 'invisible' or 'clear' peg) this raises the number of codes to 2,401. For those that find this is not enough, you may wish to try Super Master Mind which introduces two additional colored pegs and one additional hole for a total of 32,768 codes. (59,049 if you allow blanks!)

Please note that when making guesses, the 'expert' code breaker doesn't always play a POSSIBLE code... the code breaker may actually make a guess that he/she knows cannot possibly be correct... but does so because the resulting feedback will actually make things easier on his/her next guess.

Mastermind is asymmetrical, i.e. it is one of the few games in which both you and your opponent do not start off the game with identical materials and goals. You each take turns being both the code maker and the code breaker. Thus, Mastermind is essentially a solitaire game, a game for the code BREAKER.

There are actually numerous methods of scoring, most of which aren't mentioned in the rules. The easiest method is probably to simply agree on a set number of games. Your score is the number of rows (guesses) it took you to solve the code for all these games. The person who has LOWEST total after the games is the winner. For example, if my opponent and I agree on a three-game match and I solve my opponent's code in 4 rows in Game 1, in 5 rows in Game 2, and again in 5 rows in our my game, my total score for the three games is 14. My opponent must then do better than this in his three games to beat me.

Another method is to simply play a best two-out-of-three or three-out-of-five series... the actual number of guesses one takes in solving the code is not accumulated. With this method, if one player has a bad game and scores poorly in the first game of a series, he/she can still come back and win the series by outperforming his/her opponent in the next few games.

Another method of scoring is with the use of a chess clock! The person who solves his/her code fastest, regardless of the number of rows it takes, is the winner. Your kids may have an advantage on you here. (Shoot, your kids may have an advantage over you anyway!)

Although most games take just a few minutes to play, usually you will want to play several games at each sitting. I, more than once, have thought for more than an hour on a code (Super Mastermind) and I know I'm not the only one who has done so.

The board is visually appealing and takes up very little space on your coffee table. Considering the low price, it's an excellent purchase and if taken care of, your board and pieces will last a lifetime.

Mastermind is certainly not for everyone. I know too many people who would never subject themselves to the 'mental torture' and thought processes that are often required to solve a hidden code. I, however, must not be one of these people. I can still recall as a young lad, 25 years ago, running around our house asking 'Who wants to give me a code to solve!' I had FUN solving them... and I still do! And based upon the number of spin-offs the game has produced (Grand Mastermind, Word Mastermind, Travel Mastermind etc.) and the number of Mastermind computer programs and Java applets that have been written, others have certainly enjoyed the game as much as I have.

Mastermind isn't a family game and it isn't party game. It's not a game you play when you get together with a bunch of friends or a game you play when you simply want to sit back and be entertained... but then again, Mastermind doesn't pretend to be any of these things either. Mastermind scores a hit for what it is... a simple, elegant game that can be enjoyed by men and women, boys and girls, the young and the old, anywhere, at any time.

Thread: User Review

Bluenose — 2005-03-03T12:28:21+00:00

The rules of this simple, elegant and clever game are explained in the reviews below. This review is coming from a slightly different perspective...
In case you didn't know and can't be bothered to click on the other reviews, Mastermind involves one player placing 4 pegs into 4 holes behind a screen. The other player has to place pegs into their slot in the hope of replicating the sequence. The hidden sequence maker then marks their attempt with pegs saying if any of their pegs were the right colour in the right hole or the right colour but in the wrong hole. Then the guesses tries again. Keep going until toy get it right! Then swap sides.
What does this game have to offer? It's a logical deduction game, and probably the purest one available (Although several upgraded and harder versions were produced, the basic concept remains the same)
It's quick (Usually about 15 minutes for both players to play both sides) It's VERY good at teaching deduction and permutation; for instance, one of the toughest situations to be in is to make a single attempt and receive 2 black pegs; 2 pegs the correct colour and in the right place. But which 2?
This game probably disappeared for several reasons; in the 70's EVERYONE had Mastermind. Once the market is swamped, there's nowhere left to go and sales are going to dwindle. It's also a pretty one dimensional game; it isn't the sort of game that will keep you coming back for months and months, night after night.
Where does it feature in my games collection? It falls into the category of "Glad I own it. Don't want to get rid of it. Will play it with my kids when they are old enough. Then it'll go back into mothballs until we have a "Do you remember the game..." nostalgia day. Then everybody will love it for an hour, then back into mothballs again." (It's a small category but the heading on the drawer is about a foot wide...)

Thread: User Review

REGGY — 2005-02-01T19:01:00+00:00

What can I say? Most of us would have played this game at some time. And it’s a good one to get out again when your kids hit about 10 or 11. This is without doubt a classic and contributed greatly to my early love of boardgames.

It has appeared in a few different guises but the basics are the same. One player places pegs behind a shield and the other uses luck and quite a bit of nouse to figure out what those pegs are and their exact position in the sequence. They place their guess on the board by using pegs from the same pool and creating their own sequence. (I never was clever enough as a child to try counting the remaining pegs in the box to at least figure out which ones had been used in the original code).

The first attempt by the guessing player is just that; a guess. The hiding player then scores that guess using smaller pegs on the same board. A white-peg score means you have a colour correct but in the wrong position. A black-peg score means you have one colour correct and in the correct position.

Based on reasoning you can whittle down the possible colour combinations until you are spot-on; or not. There are many occasions when you can’t get the code right within the limitation imposed by the rows on the board. Especially when you allow options such as multiple use of the same colour or even blank spaces. These additional rules make it a little difficult for young players so it’s better to stick to the basics.

The most difficult thing for new players is working out the scoring. Patience and constant explanation will definitely assist.

I have fond memories of playing Mastermind with my parents and I’m sure it’s one I will drag out again many times to play with my own kids.

Thread: User Review

Majiken — 2005-01-26T01:36:15+00:00

Anytime I want to make my wife feel superior and smarter than me, I pull out Mastermind. For some reason I've yet to fathom, I cannot win this game. This, of course, makes it one of her favorites.

Mastermind is, at first glance, a fairly simple game. In the basic game, the Codemaker sets up four colored pegs behind the hinged shield, and the other player (the Codebreaker, of course), has to determine the exact combination. By exact, you have to guess what color is in what hole, not just what colors there are. There are ten rows of four holes, and the Codebreaker places pegs in these to show his guess. You only get ten guesses, so make each one count! The Codemaker does have to give you clues, but doesn't tell you outright which peg you guessed correctly. Next to the peg rows is a smaller track of smaller holes (called Key Pegs) that can help the Codebreaker. The Codemaker places either white or black pegs to show how close you are. It's up to the Codebreaker to figure out which small Key Peg applies to the larger Code Pegs they played. There are only three options.

A black Key Peg indicates a Code Peg of the right color in the right position.

A white Key Peg indicates a Code peg of the right color but in the wrong position.

No Key Peg indicates a wrong color that is not in the Master code.

None of the above will give a clue to the position of the right colored pegs, so there's still an element of guesswork involved. Make your last guess wrong and the Codemaker wins, scoring 1 point for each row used by the Codebreaker. If all ten rows were used and the code remains unbroken, the Codemaker scores 11 points (10 + 1 bonus point). Players then switch roles. Keep doing this until one player reaches a predetermined winning score. Pretty straightforward, ain't it? There are also options to the game, such as using a code with two or more pegs of the same color, or even leaving a hole empty to really throw off the Breaker.
I like the game because the board is cool and the idea of cracking a code is attractive. My wife loves it because she never loses as either the Codebreaker or the Codemaker.
Joe's scale of 1 to 10 rates Mastermind a 6. Maybe because I'm just not into using my brain so much I get a headache, or because my Lady really knows how to gloat. This is a great game to leave out on the coffee table, as it is attractive and often gets visitors asking for a game or two.

Mastermind. Easy to learn, easy to play, not so easy to win. Give it a try!

Thread: Static Mastermind

lyman — 2004-05-23T03:35:34+00:00

An article: http://www.maa.org/editorial/knot/Mastermind.html#3
suggests a variant in which one player reveals his guesses simultaneously and then determines the code based on the results. They demonstrate several sets of six guesses which suffice but it was unproven (but conjectured) whether there was a set of five that would have this effect. Note that using this set of six would entail a "seven move" game.

Thread: Optimal Strategy

lyman — 2004-05-23T03:21:26+00:00

Reference found at http://www.tnelson.demon.co.uk/mastermind/

This web page actually contains among other things a strategy table.

Question: How many moves would it take a perfect Master Mind player to find the solution?
Answer: In 1993, Kenji Koyama and Tony W. Lai calculated that the best strategy uses an average of 5625/1296 = 4.340 moves (with just one case needing a six move solution).

Kenji Koyama, Tony W. Lai, 'An Optimal Mastermind Strategy'. Journal of Recreational Mathematics, 1993.