Solved games
In brief
Each game below was played in the app's engine, which calculated the clues. For each guess, the last column gives the number of codes still possible: those that would have given the same clues for all the guesses already played.
A game at Easy level
Easy level: 3 pegs, 5 colors, 10 rows, 60 possible codes at the start. Secret code: (blue, red, purple). Game won in 4 guesses.
| Guess | Pegs | Clues | Codes still possible |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 misplaced | 18 | |
| 2 | 2 misplaced | 5 | |
| 3 | 2 correctly placed | 2 | |
| 4 | 3 correctly placed | 1 |
The first 2 guesses have no correctly placed pegs, so every color present is somewhere other than where it was placed. That leaves 5 codes; the next guess narrows it to 2, and the right one is found on the guess after that.
A game at Intermediate level
Intermediate level: 4 pegs, 6 colors, 8 rows, 360 possible codes at the start. Secret code: (red, yellow, blue, orange). Game won in 4 guesses.
| Guess | Pegs | Clues | Codes still possible |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 correctly placed, 1 misplaced | 24 | |
| 2 | 1 correctly placed, 2 misplaced | 5 | |
| 3 | 3 correctly placed | 1 | |
| 4 | 4 correctly placed | 1 |
Before guess 3, 5 codes are still possible. The guess red, green, blue, orange is one of them, and each of those codes would give a different response: whatever the response, the code is known. The strategy explains this choice.
A game at Hard level, with repeats
Hard level: 5 pegs, 7 colors, 15 rows, 14,070 possible codes at the start. Secret code: (orange, yellow, yellow, orange, brown). Game won in 4 guesses.
| Guess | Pegs | Clues | Codes still possible |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 correctly placed | 420 | |
| 2 | 2 correctly placed | 39 | |
| 3 | 4 correctly placed | 1 | |
| 4 | 5 correctly placed | 1 |
The code repeats 2 colors. Guess 2 places 3 yellow pegs even though the code contains only 2: the extra pegs give no hints. At Hard level, a color appears at most 2 times in the code, which limits in advance what such a guess can reveal.
A Last Chance game
Game drawn by the app at Intermediate level (4 pegs, 6 colors): the first 7 rows are already played, and one row is left. Can you find the code?
| Row | Pegs | Clues |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 misplaced | |
| 2 | 2 misplaced | |
| 3 | 3 misplaced | |
| 4 | 3 correctly placed | |
| 5 | 1 correctly placed, 2 misplaced | |
| 6 | 2 correctly placed, 1 misplaced | |
| 7 | 1 correctly placed, 1 misplaced |
See the solution
Only one code fits all of these rows: (orange, green, blue, purple). Played on the last row, it wins.