What Mastermind is
Everyone races to crack the same secret code of coloured pegs. Each guess comes back marked — right peg, right place? — and that’s all you get.
The boxed game has one person hide a code and the other work it out, which leaves somebody with nothing to do for ten minutes. Here the deal hides it and two to twelve players race the same one, so nobody is ever the person watching.
The marks are deliberately not lined up with the pegs they describe. A filled dot is a peg right in colour and place, a hollow one is the right colour somewhere else — four hollow marks and no filled ones means you have every colour and not one of the places.
Every peg carries a shape as well as a colour — dot, triangle, square, diamond and on. They sit at full contrast on every colour in the palette, so a board can be played from the shapes alone rather than from telling this crimson from that grass.
How to play Mastermind
- A secret code is dealt: four pegs, six colours, repeats allowed.
- Everyone breaks the same code at once, on their own phone. Nobody sees anybody else’s rows.
- Play a row and it comes back marked: a filled dot for every peg that is the right colour in the right place, a hollow one for every peg that is the right colour in the wrong place.
- The marks never tell you WHICH peg — that is the whole game.
- Ten rows each. Crack it and you score 100, less 10 for every row after the first — never below 10. Run out of rows and you score nothing.
- First one home takes 50 more — and cuts the round down to forty-five seconds for everybody still hunting.
How to win at Mastermind
Open with two colours, not four
A first row of two pegs each from two colours splits the palette faster than four different pegs do.
Rule colours out as you go
Hold a colour in the palette to strike it through on your own board — the note is private and never leaves your phone.
Move one peg at a time
Once a row scores well, shift a single peg and read what the marks did; change two and you learn nothing.
A fast crack is worth 60
Cracking it on row three pays 80 where row nine pays 20, so a guess you can learn from is worth spending early.
Their win is your clock
The first crack cuts everyone still hunting to forty-five seconds, so don’t save your best deduction for later.
Count marks, never places
The marks say how many and never which, so two filled and two hollow is a row with every colour right and half the places wrong.
Questions about Mastermind
What exactly do the two marks mean?
A filled mark is a peg that is the right colour in the right place; a hollow one is the right colour in the wrong place. Neither ever tells you which peg it is talking about.
What happens when somebody cracks it first?
They take 50 points on top of their solve, and everyone still hunting gets forty-five seconds. The squeeze only ever shortens the clock, and only once a round.
What do the difficulty settings change?
Classic is the printed shape — four pegs from six colours over ten rows. Tricky adds two colours, Brutal is five pegs from eight over twelve rows, and the host can ban repeated colours on any of them.
Can it be played without relying on colour?
Yes. Every peg is marked with its own shape at full contrast, and a screen reader announces a row as pegs rather than as colours, so the whole board works from the marks.
Is Mastermind free?
Yes. Every game on Table Party is free, with no accounts, no adverts and nothing to buy.
How many people do you need for Mastermind?
Between 2 and 12. Below 2 there are not enough of you for the game to work.
Do we need to download anything?
No. One person opens the site and starts a room; everybody else joins by typing the room code on their own phone. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.
Can we play Mastermind over a video call?
Yes. Share the room code in the chat and play with the call running — everything private stays on each player’s own phone.