The rules of Codebreaker Master
In brief
The app picks a secret code of colored pegs. You make one guess per row. After each guess, the app tells you how many pegs are correctly placed (right color, right position) and how many are misplaced (right color, different position), without saying which ones. You win if a row has all its pegs correctly placed; you lose if all rows are used.
The goal
Find the color and position of each peg in the secret code, using as few rows as possible. The number of pegs, colors and rows depends on the chosen level:
| Level | Pegs | Colors | Rows | At most one color |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 4 | 6 | 10 | once |
| Intermediate | 5 | 8 | 10 | once |
| Hard | 6 | 9 | 20 | 2 times |
| Extreme | 7 | 10 | 30 | 3 times |
Setup
The app draws the code at random at the start of the game. A level with 8 colors uses the first 8 colors of the palette, in this order:
- red
- yellow
- blue
- orange
- purple
- green
- brown
- black
At the Easy level, these are the first 6; at the Hard level, the first 9; at the Extreme level, the whole palette of 10 colors. On this site, each peg shows the first two letters of its color, as a marker. The code never has an empty slot.
Making a guess
On the current row, in the app:
- tap a slot in the current row, then a color from the palette;
- double-tap a placed peg to remove it;
- tap a peg in a row already played to copy its color into the chosen slot;
- tap the copy icon to the left of a submitted row to copy the whole row.
Then you submit the row: the clues appear next to it, and the next row becomes the current row.
Reading the clues
By default, a small black peg indicates a correctly placed peg and a small white peg a misplaced peg. The clues are grouped together: their order does not match the order of the pegs in the guess.
| Secret code | red, yellow, blue, orange, purple | |
|---|---|---|
| Guess | red, blue, purple, orange, green | |
| Clues | 2 correctly placed, 2 misplaced | |
Here, the app answers “2 correctly placed, 2 misplaced.” It first counts the correctly placed pegs. Then, among the remaining pegs of the guess, it counts those whose color is still found elsewhere in the code. A color that is not in the code earns nothing.
All colors right, none in the right place:
| Secret code | red, yellow, blue, orange, purple | |
|---|---|---|
| Guess | yellow, blue, orange, purple, red | |
| Clues | 5 misplaced | |
Repeated colors
In the code, a color appears at most once at the Easy and Intermediate levels, at most 2 times at the Hard level and at most 3 times at the Extreme level. In your guesses, you can repeat a color as often as you like, at every level.
Each peg in the code counts only once. If your guess contains more copies of a color than the code, the extra copies earn nothing:
| Secret code | red, yellow, blue, orange, purple | |
|---|---|---|
| Guess | red, red, red, red, red | |
| Clues | 1 correct position | |
The code contains only one red peg, in its spot: only one of your red pegs is counted, as correctly placed, and the others earn nothing. The same applies at Hard level, where the code can repeat a color:
| Secret code | purple, yellow, yellow, black, orange, gray | |
|---|---|---|
| Guess | yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow | |
| Clues | 2 correct positions | |
The code contains 2 yellow pegs: only 2 of your yellow pegs count, and the others earn nothing.
Incomplete rows
The app accepts a row as soon as one peg is placed: empty spaces left blank earn no clues. Only the last row must be complete to be submitted. An empty row can never be submitted.
| Secret code | red, yellow, blue, orange, purple | |
|---|---|---|
| Guess | red, empty space, blue, empty space, empty space | |
| Clues | 2 correct positions | |
An incomplete row cannot win, since an empty space is never correctly placed, and it uses up a row just like a complete attempt.
Win and loss
- Win: all the pegs in a row are correctly placed. The winning row counts as one attempt.
- Loss: the last row is played without finding the code, for example after 10 rows at Easy level.
