Board Games
How to play Mastermind
Use exact-color and misplaced-color feedback to deduce a hidden five-peg code. This guide explicitly teaches Advanced Mastermind.
What you need
Advanced five-hole code board with shield, eight code colors, red/white key pegs and twelve guess rows
Set up the game
- Choose Codemaker and Codebreaker. Secretly fill five code holes using any of eight colors; repeats are allowed. Keep the shield closed.
- Agree an even number of games so both players make and break equally. The empty-hole option is a separate variant, excluded here.
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Playing Mastermind
- Codebreaker fills the next row with five guesses. Codemaker gives red keys for right color/right position and white for right color/wrong position.
- Key positions do not correspond to guess positions. Count exact matches first; match each remaining code peg at most once. Leave guesses and feedback visible.
- Five red keys solves the code. Otherwise continue for up to twelve rows. Reveal the code at the end.
- Codemaker scores one per guess row; an unbroken twelve-row code scores thirteen. Switch roles. Highest series total wins. The sheet provides a replay and three-point Codebreaker remedy for proven incorrect feedback.
One secret color cannot be counted twice
The secret is magenta, blue, green, yellow, purple. The guess is magenta, magenta, orange, orange, orange. Give one red exact-match key and no white keys. The secret has only one magenta, already matched; the second guessed magenta earns nothing. Code-peg colors can vary by set; red here names the feedback key, not a required code color.
Why name the edition?
The logic of feedback carries across the family, but colors, code length and attempt counts change the search problem. If your board has four code holes, use its own manual rather than pretending one can remove a position without changing the game. The worked feedback principle below still illustrates why duplicate colors require care.
Check feedback openly after the reveal
Review disputed rows against the exposed code before resetting. A wrong key can invalidate several later deductions, so do not dismiss a contradiction as poor guessing. Correct feedback is part of the Codemaker’s job, not a discretionary hint. For teaching, try a practice row together before hiding a scored code.
Beginner decisions
- Make guesses that test alternatives consistent with all earlier feedback, not only the latest row.
- Use duplicate-color bookkeeping carefully. Extra copies in a guess do not earn extra keys if the secret has fewer copies.
Common rule mix-ups
- Treating a key’s hole as the matching code location.
- Using four-position classic limits while reading these Advanced rules.
Questions about this game
Can the secret repeat colors?
Yes.
Can it contain blanks?
Only the sheet’s optional second game; not the filled-code format here.
Sources and edition notes
Pressman Advanced Mastermind 4016-0710 (2005): five code positions, eight colors and twelve guesses. Standard four-position Mastermind boxes differ.
Sources and stated format checked October 14, 2026. This records a document check, not a claim of hands-on testing.
- Pressman Advanced instruction sheet, publisher-authored PDF hosted by retailer
- Goliath/Pressman: Mastermind family