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Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 11 May 2020, 13:20
by stevensky
I would like to share my Medium article to those interested in Mastermind:
https://medium.com/@stevensky/decoding- ... 3479798695
Re: Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 12 May 2020, 10:53
by Sandoval
Very interesting, thanks. I'm getting some Unicode errors in Firefox though:
- Screenshot of Unicode errors
- 2020-05-12 11_52_19-Decoding Mastermind - stevensky - Medium.png (18.03 KiB) Viewed 2433 times
Re: Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 12 May 2020, 15:15
by stevensky
Sandoval wrote: ↑12 May 2020, 10:53
Very interesting, thanks. I'm getting some Unicode errors in Firefox though:
2020-05-12 11_52_19-Decoding Mastermind - stevensky - Medium.png
Thanks for your feedback! The 4 sets of colour emojis are: RGBY, WOGY, GY and Y. Guess it's clear enough and I have also added remarks in brackets into the Medium article.
Re: Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 16 May 2020, 10:56
by Ankeszu
Interesting article, I think it's more like introducing the game (and the thinking required) for people not knowing it.
I got a bit thrown off by the intro as Mastermind I have in family house include 5-slot code and there is no rule about "no color repeats" and "no blanks"[which actually just adds a Blank color]. Tthe game without these options was far too easy
it would be possible that we invented those options, but I am fairly sure I once found somewhere an app with the same options.
Re: Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 17 May 2020, 08:44
by Christes
When I was growing up, my dad played a version of this game with me using 4 digit numbers. (so we essentially had 10 colors instead of 8)
One of my first programming projects was to make a version of this game in Python where the computer can player wither side. Good times. (Also - one thing I noticed is that the naive strategy of just picking random codes that are consistent with clues so far tends to win surprisingly fast. It's just hard to do this as a human!)
If anyone wants to dive deeper into the math behind the game (with possibly more colors), there is an interesting paper here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1207.0773
Re: Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 19 May 2020, 18:08
by stevensky
Ankeszu wrote: ↑16 May 2020, 10:56
Interesting article, I think it's more like introducing the game (and the thinking required) for people not knowing it.
I got a bit thrown off by the intro as Mastermind I have in family house include 5-slot code and there is no rule about "no color repeats" and "no blanks"[which actually just adds a Blank color]. Tthe game without these options was far too easy
it would be possible that we invented those options, but I am fairly sure I once found somewhere an app with the same options.
I also think it's introductory, but I tried to integrate some mathematical concepts as well to make it an in-depth introductory.
I played with my family for a few times in this month, mostly I could break the code within 6 turns. Maybe I shall try 5-slot code some time.
Re: Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 19 May 2020, 18:11
by stevensky
Christes wrote: ↑17 May 2020, 08:44
When I was growing up, my dad played a version of this game with me using 4 digit numbers. (so we essentially had 10 colors instead of 8)
One of my first programming projects was to make a version of this game in Python where the computer can player wither side. Good times. (Also - one thing I noticed is that the naive strategy of just picking random codes that are consistent with clues so far tends to win surprisingly fast. It's just hard to do this as a human!)
If anyone wants to dive deeper into the math behind the game (with possibly more colors), there is an interesting paper here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1207.0773
Thanks for sharing the paper, it's really impressive but the pure math is driving me nuts haha
Re: Decoding Mastermind
Posted: 06 June 2020, 23:57
by compte obelète
And also, there can be also 1 player, if wanted.