The codebreaking game Mastermind is 50 years old

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/23/the-codebreaking-game-mastermi.html

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Got it for Christmas when it came out. Jeebus, I’m old. :frowning_face:
Still a great game, though!

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My parents had one, bought back in the 80’s and i grew up playing it. It’s a really fun and challenging game with simple rules so setting up and playing is relatively quick :slight_smile:

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For anyone looking it play this game solo: https://www.douglas-meyer.name/Mastermind/

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I remember being confused that the man on the box wasn’t Magnus Magnusson, and that they didn’t even use the right chair.

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I see nothing there.

I no longer have the original full-sized game, but here’s what the original travel-sized one from a few years later looks like:

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Every kid thinks their parents must be telepathic, knowing what you’re going to do before you do it.
Well my late mother was able to guess the Mastermind colors in 2-3 rounds. Consistently.
We took to concentrating “purple gold grey cyan” to break her mind meld. And that would work.

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You don’t see Mr. Teasy-Weasy and a self-described “impoverished student” on the cover of Mastermind, nor the woman crouching behind Fung to hold her too-large dress in place, nor the urine stains on Woodward’s trousers from an attempt to photograph a cat in his lap.

Well that’s mean. They should have asked him if he was deathly afraid of cats before springing one on him and making him piss himself.

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Android phone , Firefox with tons of scriptblockers gets it no prob

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It’s still a favorite in our house. When one of the younger kids is the “codebreaker,” we modify the rules to prohibit the “codemaster” from using more than one of the same color. With that rule modification, even our 5yo can enjoy it.

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My 8 year old mind was blown when I received this as a gift. I played with it for hours before I read the manual, and found you could also use empty holes.

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whoo-hoo!


it took me several turns to understand what I was looking at, though, and that the guesses scroll. a link to some examples would help a noob.

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Empty holes? I had no idea!

I guess I should read the manual some time…

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Yes! I had this game, didn’t even know there was a larger-size version.

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I always thought he looked like James Last.

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Yeah, there was a version with 5 holes and a couple more colors. ISTR that there was also a version with shapes and colors, but it wasn’t nearly as good.

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Mastermind Royale is the version with the shapes.

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THICC AF (yes checker this is a full sentence)

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