Using information theory to solve Mastermind

I grew up with this game. It hurt my brain but in a good way. I think a lot of my problem solving and interest in coding stemmed from it.

Really great article. Internalizing that a good realizable Mastermind strategy is to always eliminate the same number of possible solutions is a great way to internalize the value of information theory thinking. Getting hung up if it is exactly "plan k steps forward optimal" (i.e. fine details of the remaining possible cases) can be counter-productive.

Really liked it. I'm curious about games for which the guesses are not always a valid solution but can contain special operators. For instance, add a state which is true for 2 different values in Secret Code : 1or2. The code won't contain it but it can be useful for getting more information at each step.

I love stuff like this. It always tickles my brain to try and find the optimal way (or, as optimal a way as I can) of solving puzzles. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's really hard. Oftentimes you can get something decent with not too much effort, and the dopamine hit is great when you see it working

Cool. Tiny tip, “Worlde” is obviously a typo for the popular puzzle.