How to play Mastermind

6 years ago
99

Learn the rules to the board game Mastermind quickly and concisely - This visually rich video has no distractions, just the rules.

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RULES:

The object of the game is to score the most points over several rounds by figuring out the code makers hidden code. Setup: Players sit across from each other with the board in between. One player is the code maker and the other is the code breaker. Put two tiny pegs, one red and the other white, in the side scoring track, these will be used to keep score. The code breaker looks away until the code maker makes a code of colored pegs behind the secrecy screen.

Once finished, the code breaker turns around and places colored pegs into the empty row closest to him. Once the code breaker has finished the first row, the code maker must provide feedback to the code breaker as to how close his code is the hidden one.

Using the tiny red and white pegs, the code maker indicates what information is correct. For each colored peg in the right spot in the column with the hidden code, the code maker puts a red peg into the side track of the board. If the color of the peg is correct but its position isn’t, then a white peg is used. If the information is incorrect, no peg is used. The placement of the pegs on the side of the row has no indication as to which colored peg it is specifically referring to. It is the job of the code breaker to use logic and deduction to figure it out.

Once the code breaker has matched the hidden code identically, the code maker removes the secrecy screen and reveals the matching solution. Count up how many rows it took for the code breaker to solve the code, the code maker receives that many points and moves the score peg marking them up. If the code breaker cannot break the code before running out of rows, then the round ends and the code maker scores points for all the rows.

Switch rolls and play again as many times as you like, or a specific number of rounds, or until one player reaches a predetermined score. The player with the highest score at the end wins.

To make the code easier or harder to break you can modify the use of the code maker using duplicate colors or even allowing them to use blank spaces.

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