Mastermind
One secret row of pegs, a handful of guesses, and a lot of quiet frowning.
What it is
One player hides a code of four colored pegs, and the other gets a limited number of guesses to crack it. After each guess, small key pegs show how close you came without saying which peg was right. Mordecai Meirowitz invented it around 1970, and Goliath became its worldwide maker in 2025. Perfect for two people who enjoy logic puzzles, including patient kids from eight up.
What we love
- Clear feedback makes it a fine first lesson in deduction
- Swap roles so both players get to set a devious code
- Repeated colors or empty holes make codes harder as you improve
Honest trade-offs
- The codemaker mostly sits and places key pegs, which is not very dramatic
- Once you learn a method, games start to feel alike
AI summary of player sentiment
Across the tables we polled, players consistently praise the game's approachability and pacing. The most common complaint is the codemaker mostly sits and places key pegs, which is not very dramatic.
This summary is regenerated from new reviews each week. Astra will wire the generation job to the Vercel Cron detailed in the handoff doc.
Content advisory
No content advisory.
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