2010-09-30, 12:03 AM
Depends how you play Mastermind, really. There are a few rulesets of different difficulty:
black and white pegs, black tells you the peg is correct, white tells you it's in the wrong spot.
Easy: pegs in the same position as they refer to.
Medium: pegs are in any position
Hard: only 1 type of peg (black/white) - that's what this game is.
Plus IIRC Mastermind only has 8-10 colours, this game has 26. Reducing that by limiting it to 1 of a colour just means 10^5 vs. 26!/21!, which is still much much larger.
black and white pegs, black tells you the peg is correct, white tells you it's in the wrong spot.
Easy: pegs in the same position as they refer to.
Medium: pegs are in any position
Hard: only 1 type of peg (black/white) - that's what this game is.
Plus IIRC Mastermind only has 8-10 colours, this game has 26. Reducing that by limiting it to 1 of a colour just means 10^5 vs. 26!/21!, which is still much much larger.