In Code Breaker the computer hides a short code of colored pegs under a shield, and you have ten guesses to work it out. After each guess, small key pegs tell you how close you are. Here’s how the clues work and how to use them.
The rules
The hidden code is 4 pegs from 6 colors on Easy and Normal, and 5 pegs from 8 colors on Hard.
On Easy no color is used twice in the code. On Normal and Hard colors can repeat.
Tap a color in the tray, then the holes in the glowing row (or drag pegs in), and tap Check.
Crack the code within 10 guesses to win. If you run out, the shield lifts to show the code.
Reading the key pegs
A black key peg means one of your pegs is the right color in the right hole. A white key peg means one is a right color but in the wrong hole. The key pegs don’t say which of your pegs they mean, so you have to work that out.
Each peg in the code is counted only once. If the code has one red and you guess two reds, you get credit for one red at most. Every color also has its own symbol, so you can tell pegs apart without relying on color.
A good way to start
On Normal, open with two of one color and two of another (for example red, red, yellow, yellow). It tests two colors at once and splits the possible codes well.
On Easy, where colors don’t repeat, try four different colors first; the total of black and white pegs tells you how many of them are in the code.
If a guess scores nothing at all, every color in it is out. That’s a useful result, not a wasted turn.
Make every guess fit the clues
Before you check a guess, make sure it could be the code: for each earlier guess, it should earn exactly the black and white pegs that guess got. Guesses that fit every clue home in on the code fastest.
When only a few codes are left, change one or two pegs at a time so the new clue tells you exactly what moved.
Let the computer guess
In the Computer guesses mode you hide a 4-peg code and watch the computer crack it. It scores its own guesses honestly and uses a minimax strategy that never needs more than five tries. It’s a good way to see how strong guesses narrow down the possibilities.