Code Breaker
Also known as Bulls and Cows, Colour Code and Code Cracker
Guess the hidden sequence of colours, and read what the marks tell you. A green tick means the colour is in exactly the right slot; an orange arrow means it belongs somewhere else; a grey cross rules it out entirely. No colour repeats, so every guess narrows it down.
How it works
- Fill every slot with a colour, then submit your guess.
- No colour appears twice, so each one you rule out narrows the code.
- A green tick means that colour is in exactly the right slot — keep it there.
- Orange arrows mean the colour is in the code, but belongs in a different slot.
- A grey cross means that colour isn't in the code at all.
Good if you want…
- Deduction with no reading at all
- A puzzle that is different every single round
- Feeling clever in about five minutes
How to solve Code Breaker
Spend the first guess on coverage
No colour appears twice in the code, so your first guess should use as many different colours as the slots allow. Every colour comes back marked, and a grey cross removes that colour from the whole puzzle. A first guess that rules out two or three colours has already done a great deal of work.
Keep the ticks, move the arrows
The marks in Winters Puzzles are per slot, which makes each guess very informative. A green tick means that colour belongs in exactly that slot — leave it there for the rest of the round. An orange arrow means the colour is in the code but somewhere else, so on the next guess put it in a slot it has not tried yet.
Track where each colour cannot be
An arrow is really two facts: the colour is in the code, and it is not in that slot. After a few guesses, a colour that has been tried in three of four slots with arrows each time can only go in the fourth. Keeping a mental note of which slots each colour has already failed in is the whole game on the harder rounds.
Use new colours to test
When you have fewer confirmed colours than slots, fill the unknown slots with colours you have not tried yet rather than repeating ones you know are out. Each guess should either confirm a position or introduce something new — a guess that can only tell you what you already knew is wasted.
Common mistakes
- Moving a colour that got a tick. It is in the right place; leave it.
- Putting an arrowed colour back in the slot it just failed in.
- Guessing a colour that already came back with a grey cross.
Where Code Breaker comes from
Code-breaking games like this go back to a pen-and-paper game called Bulls and Cows, played with digits long before it was a board game. The version here marks each slot separately, which makes it quicker to learn and very satisfying to finish in few guesses.
Code Breaker questions
Can a colour appear twice in the code?
No. Every colour in the code is different.
What do the three marks mean?
A green tick is the right colour in the right slot, an orange arrow is a colour that belongs in another slot, and a grey cross is a colour that is not in the code.
Code Breaker in Winters Puzzles
Code Breaker is one of 40 puzzles in Winters Puzzles, so it sits alongside Patch, Logic Grid, Pippin and everything else in the app rather than being a download of its own. It counts towards your stats and streak like any other puzzle. It also has a published board in Pip’s dailies, with earlier dates available in the archive.
Play Code Breaker.
Free on iPhone and iPad, with 39 other puzzles alongside it. Or play it in your browser — no download, nothing to sign up for.
