Table Top Game Reviews: Mastermind
I'm a big fan of this game, probably because I had the retro version as a kid. As a programmer, I love the logic behind it and the code-breaking fun.
The basic idea involves one player creating a code the other player has to break. Each time one player guesses, the code maker gives them clues as to how many pegs they have exactly correct (color and position gets a red peg) and how many are the right color but the wrong position (white peg).
Lately my 3-year-old has wanted to play and, with a bit of help from her sister, she's actually starting to understand it. It was mostly luck, but I played a game with her recently where she guessed the code in 3 guesses! You can see her smile when she got it:
You can buy it on Amazon (currently selling for $11.99). It's got a 5.5 rating on boardgamegeek.com out of 4.5k ratings. I personally think this game is underrated, but that might be my childhood nostalgia talking.
Here are the main reasons I like this game:
- Who doesn't like breaking codes with logic!!! This is like spy enigma machine stuff, right here.
- It reinforces the concept that negative information is how we truly gain knowledge. See one of my favorite videos from Veritasium for more on that: Can You Solve This?
- When my kids score something wrong, sometimes the logic is so clear I can point out there mistake, even if I don't know the code yet.
- It's a quick game, so we can play multiple rounds and take turns creating and guessing codes.
Thanks for checking out my board game review!
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Just made the purchase at your behest. Always looking to find more games to play with my 3 year old girl Bianca. I think this will be a bit of an upgrade from the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game we've been getting bored with.
It's a bit advanced for a three year old (mine still doesn't quite get it), but my middle girl (6 years old) mostly gets it and helps her out.
Here, I'll drop you a full upvote so you can pay for it with SBD. :)
Holy shite that's my biggest paying post right now lol. I was happy with just the good suggestion. :-o
I like to challenge her from time to time just to see where she's at, so it can go on the shelf for later if it's too much. She's a bright kid so who knows?
Have fun! :)
Mastermind is one of few used in the Mind Sports Olympiad. Demis Hassabis, the guy behind Google's Deep Mind AI efforts and previously the game Black & White (flopped but was hugely hyped and ambitious), is one of many notable Mind Sport champions. I never played it but after reading about that a few years ago, I thought about learning it. Just need someone to play with...
Very cool!
Hey, question for you. You seem to upvote all your own comments. Some are getting upset about this practice and think it's "unfair" or more "rewards pool rape". What are your thoughts on it? Should the SP you have entitle you to as much of the rewards pool you can get by commenting and upvoting as much as possible? In some ways, this makes sense to me, just as investing in mining equipment entitles miner owners to their share of the newly minted coin. But here, with this social media aspect, many view it differently. How do you see it? Have you done a post on this?
I am exploring the incentive system and seeing how it breaks. Not sure HF19 has it right. I've been actively reading and highlighting articles that point out its weaknesses. Maybe it will adjust and there will be an equilibrium.
But I think one has to respond to incentives as they're designed to a certain degree. I am not sure you can call any use of the existing system as "reward pools rape" or anything like that. If there's a systemic problem, we have to address it at the level of the system, not pretend it doesn't exist. Being able to upvote my comments to a high level is not the result of how I was born --> it was the result of me having earned a lot of Steem writing, curating, and commenting and also having bought with fresh money a lot of Steem, more of the latter than probably 99% of Steemians. It's how the system works and understanding the system and how it works in general and how it works for me is literally why I have bought Steem every time I have done so. And I'll probably show up in the transfer list as a large buyer of Steem in the last week on the list you compile --> in part because I think this HF19 is a more participatory iteration of the Steem platform and it gets us closer to great. I'd be interested to see who has net received more Steem from exchanges in Steem's history than my account. I bet it is few.
From my own POV, economic incentive wise, posting/commenting 50x day for $5 isn't worth my time, which is pretty dear. That is how much I could upvote a comment or post before. For $50+, commenting becomes time I can justify spending. Although not totally because I have a fulltime demanding non-crypto job -- I do a lot of Steeming on my phone, and it's still pretty brutal to use. At the current rates, I can be more more active and participatory. Maybe I am being overpaid for my time and attention and that will be addressed in a future fork. We'll see. But in the mean time my participate rate has increased.
I haven't done a post on this, but maybe I will repurpose this comment as a post. I generally prefer to experiment and understand systems on my own rather than really get involved in the politics of a system because 1) politics is boring 2) my time/attention is scarce 3) I'm interested in getting to a better tech, more than making money 4) I have not only a full-time job, but a very broad digital asset portfolio 5) most other people don't put in the time to properly understand things and get to the appropriate level of context to make informed decisions on things.
A good example of time scarcity/time well spent/time bad spend is with the recent ICOs, even the inanity of the EOS money grab -- I see many people being stupid about it and uninformed and making bad long term decisions without adequate research or understanding. Or with the GDAX flash crash -- people trading crypto on margin are insane and I say as much. I could spend a fulltime job worth of time just publishing due diligence on ICOs and advice to crypto traders and it would be a waste of time I don't have to help people who won't be helped or listen. Instead, I use soft power, soft influence, and pick my spots and make them count either behind the scenes or in front of the scenes. Here's an example of what I wrote on Tezos after engaging with the team there and uncovering many red flags. That is going to be the biggest ICO ever and it's a terrible deal but I put some work into it and have let it sit. That comment is very influential. I stick to shadows for the most part, understanding and being influential in softer, less visible ways.
Not sure if I lost the plot there or not!
Finally someone stand up to a problem. This should be the post.
Can you clarify what you mean? I didn't follow.
I like the way you expressing your thoughts about problem of self voting. I thinking that you could make good post about this. It will be interesting discussion.
P.S. Sorry, I was writing this comment from my phone and steemit.com did behave laggy at that moment. But I want to make a comment to bookmark this conversation and come back to it later.
Thanks for the follow-up and the clarification! I'll marinate on it.
don't let it get too wrinkly!
very well said. I have thought it through quite a bit so far, and the two reasons it should be disallowed are:
Well said yourself
since i realised this, I stopped self voting. It didn't matter when my vote didn't give big rewards but now I think this is not helpful. I'm not here for the money, that is secondary to the networking. There is a lot of quality people on Steem, I'm sure you agree.
Sure do. I intend to stop also. I was doing it for comments to gain visibility and on my own posts as it is default, but will stop too.
@eeks has a point about incentives though. I consider what is possible to be the bottom line, and if selfvoting is more rewarding than activity which attracts votes we can consider things on shaky ground. But I suppose we have to ask, besides what it says about your character ("I'm so great") is self voting actually that bad? Fact is there is more of the pie getting dole out by minnows. Which further begs, are they voting for themselves too!?
For the record, I advocated a reduced power, not all the way to 1 (i.e. linear) but between 1 and 2.
So if we were to go all in here, with the positions we do and the tools currently at our disposal, we might down vote (FLAG!) those who self vote. I could make a witchhunter app in a day as a tool for us 😉 You in?
I'll delegate some SP for that, for sure! Now we have delegation, maybe we can cause a similar upset as The Experiment, which is what gave us HF19...
Oh, and the rewards curve - what we have now is democracy. Everyone can substantially reward themselves with self votes. Before, that was just whales, and they could easily just create alts to make it appear as though it was not themselves. That's the only difference I see and it highlights what might have been going on behind the scenes before HF19, VERY likely.
If it's not allowed, it raises the potential for people to sell their Steem because it's not worth as much to people who bought in under these conditions and understanding these mechanics. That would drive the price of Steem down substantially as there are a lot more people earning Steem than regularly buying Steem on Polo or Bittrex. On the margin, this could radically lower the price of Steem, which in turn would reduce the rewards for writing posts and curating for minnows and dolphins and curb their creation and activity, and so on.
That's why all these issues aren't simple -- there are tradeoffs in every direction and human beings grouped together are complex adaptive systems.
Like the sun in its' effect on the earth, the biggest controller of the value of Steem is purely the subjective opinions of the markets. Price going up and down will be not caused by something as simple as a HF with a ban on self voting, most likely. But outsiders are gonna think self voting is lame, this is everyone's first response before they start to think about it, and not be so sure.
Why is it you are forgetting that voting, posting, flagging, these are NOT market phenomena, as in money? These are culture exchange, this is the correct place for democracy. The objective of Steem's design is to facilitate the reward of the production of items of culture that are most appreciated by the users. Self voting does not provide that information to the network.
And as I have mentioned elsewhere, the incentive for people with strange ideas about valid ways to earn money? They will come and spam it up so they can pin their self votes on it.
We will see soon enough once people start doing some analytics how much of a problem this is. I don't want to see Steem becoming filled up with entropy.
I agree entirely, I also can't see any argument apart from self induglence that justifies self voting.
Excellent comment. Thanks for your detailed reply. I hope you do make a post out of it. Clearly, you're free to stay in the shadows, but it's my hope those with the best ideas will risk more to stand up for those ideas and put themselves out there in order to help the systems they believe in and others using those systems. If only the people with poor ideas are the loudest, we may not see improvement at the breadth and speed we could otherwise.
I imagine your actions starting some very interesting discussions and, as you said, maybe some code changes in the future as well.
I hope you walk the line between being a bad actor in the system, something the community will rally against, and exploring vulnerabilities in an ethical way which (over the long term) benefits everyone.
Rest assured, I am very active behind the scenes. ;)
Now I want to know where the "scenes" are so I can peak behind them once in a while. Heheh. :)
+1
You're forgetting the incentive to avoid a copy of the blockchain popping up and pulling all disatisfied users to a new platform, collapsing the price of STEEM.
No, I'm not, it's just that I understand blockchains well enough and am familiar with them well enough to know they aren't a real concern.
There's no lasting value in doing that and any clone will have serious competitive disadvantages in network effect terms that make it pointless -- just like Expanse or ETC compared to Ethereum, or ZClassic compared to Zcash, none of which matter in general (except as pump schemes by a few sketchy insiders who created the clones.
It's a fool's errand and easier said then done. Golos, a professional group of Russians, made a clone of Steemit and it's alive but barely valuable. And they were competent guys.
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I remember this game! I remembered it had a brown box cover.
That's right! Hah, I had forgotten that. Check the "retro" link in my post. They still sell the original version!
Hah yep - like a super basic version of The Imitation Game!
That was a really great movie. He's becoming one of my favorite actors. I really liked him in Dr Strange as well.
Yep, I didn't realize that he (Turing in the movie) laid the groundwork for our modern day computers!
Cumberbatch really has played some great roles - Star Trek, Imitation Game, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Strange... looking forward to what else he puts out.
Off topic but did you also see today that Ron Howard will be directing the upcoming Han Solo movie? Pumped for that as well. He's a great director.
Yeah, Turing was an amazing, amazing individual well ahead of his time.
Nah, I didn't hear that. Just googled to find the wikipedia page has it listed as "Untitled Han Solo film" Hah! I love all things Star Wars. I'll keep an eye on that.
You have to play games that involve logic at a young age. Children minds are always developing when they are young....nice post
Thank you!
HA! I remember that game! Much better choice than most other games of that era. I was a big fan of Stratego myself . . found this commercial poking around online. Takes me back to 90's television :)
Hahaha... oh wow. Yeah, I remember my buddy Kevin across the street had that game.
Just breaking out all the old school games for the little one. I want to see Boggle and Hungry Hungry Hippos next! :-)
Hahah! We don't have that one, but oh man, I kind of wish we did. We used to have some epic Hungry Hungry Hippos battles. We do, however, have Parcheesi and the kids love it. :)
Oh yeah, I have fond memories of this game. Other than cards, this was the only game my grandparents had. We would go to visit them and the worse possible thing that could happen was rain. Their property was like "kid haven". About 5 acres out in California wine country. We would adventure outside until dusk, most days. But, oh, the rain..... Then it was Mastermind time, hehe. I did enjoy the game the first 500 or so times I played it. But then, not so much. I give it 2 Diggs.
That sounds like a great time. 500 replays isn't bad at all. Pretty good stats for any board game. :)
Running free in nature is a good childhood. Cheers.
500 was just a number I pulled out of the air. I don't have any clue how many times my brother and I played that game.
Nature is great besides poison oak, rattle-headed copper moccasins, and other creepy crawlies, heh.
Looks like a great game. Have you ever played Rummikub with the kids?
Ah, we don't have that one, but I have played it before Good fun. :)
Honestly it is such a brilliant game for kids too, they have to think strategically too and not just put down all their tiles at once.
Nice @lukestokes ! The game looks a bit complicated for children though :p
Kids often surprise you. They rise to the expectations you set in front of them.
I regularly play very advanced adult board games with my 8 year old son. I'll do some more reviews on those later. :)
Indeed! You are absolutely right @lukestokes! Children are more capable than we might think...and motivating them with such challenging games at early ages is an excellent idea! Like teaching them a new language or play an instrument...you are a good dad mate! Looking forward to seeing more of those reviews :)