Word Mastermind
Object: Guess an opponent’s hidden
five-letter word in the fewest number of turns.
Setup: Each player thinks of a five-letter word
and writes it at the top of a piece of paper, folding the top of
the page down to conceal it. This is their hidden
word.
Play:
- Player A states any five-letter word as a guess at Player
B’s hidden word.
- Player B determines the hits and announces a two-digit
assessment. The first digit corresponds to the total number of
shared letters that Player A's guess word has with their hidden
word. The second digit identifies how many of those letters are
also in the correct position. For example: if Player B’s word
is CRYPT and Player A guessed TRAPS, the hit assessment would be
3-2. There are 3 shared letters (TRP) and two of them are in the
correct position (R and P).
- Player B then makes a guess at Player A’s word, and
Player A determines the hits and announces the two-digit
assessment.
- Players must make accurate assessments and use
acceptable words for all guesses and hidden words. A
player who makes an inaccurate assessment forfeits the game.
Acceptable words include those words allowed in Scrabble
and the Scrabble Dictionary is the official reference for these
puzzles.
- Play alternates back and forth until one Player guesses the
exact word (a hit assessment of 5-5). The player who guesses their
opponent’s word in the fewest turns wins.
Example game.
Player A’s hidden word: SASSY
Player B’s hidden word: BLAST
Player A |
Player B |
Player B |
Player A |
Guesses |
Assess |
Guesses |
Assess |
CRAFT |
2-2 |
MONEY |
1-1 |
CRUMB |
1-0 |
DOCKS |
1-0 |
EXALT |
3-2 |
BIKER |
0-0 |
YEAST |
3-3 |
FANGS |
2-1 |
MEANT |
2-2 |
SALTY |
3-3 |
BLAST |
5-5 |
SASSY |
5-5 |
To find the cache coordinates, you must first deduce both hidden
words from the situation in the table below. This game was a battle
of wits between Bonnie and Clyde who loved playing this game while
on the lam. The cache is located at a site very reminiscent of
where their getaway finally ended.
Bonnie |
Clyde |
Clyde |
Bonnie |
Guesses |
Assess |
Guesses |
Assess |
SNAKE |
1-0 |
SNAKE |
1-0 |
VITAL |
1-0 |
VITAL |
1-0 |
SPORT |
3-0 |
SPORT |
2-0 |
PORKY |
2-1 |
PORKY |
2-0 |
PRISM |
2-0 |
PRISM |
1-1 |
ROSIN |
2-2 |
ROSIN |
1-0 |
CRUSH |
3-0 |
CRUSH |
3-2 |
????? |
5-5 |
????? |
5-5 |
Once you have solved for both player’s hidden words you
can compute the coordinates as follows.
- Write down all of the letters from both player’s hidden
words and alphabetize them into a list of 10 letters.
- Replace any duplicate letters with the next unused letters in
the alphabet so that you still end up with 10 letters.
- Assign the digits 0-9 respectively to the final list of ten
alphabetized letters.
- Example: In the example game above where the two hidden
words were BLAST and SASSY, you would end up with these ten
letters: AABLSSSSTY. The duplicate A would be replaced with the
next unused letter (C) and the three duplicate Ss would be replaced
with the next two unused letters (U, V and W) and your final list
of 10 letters would be: ABCLSTUVWY. The digit assignments would
then be as follows:
A=0 |
B=1 |
C=2 |
L=3 |
S=4 |
T=5 |
U=6 |
V=7 |
W=8 |
Y=9 |
The final cache coordinates are:
North 42 2Y.YRT
West 071 3K.XKV
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.