Mastermind

Hello My Imaginary Friends,

The other day we played a new game. It’s a kids board game based off of Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon and it’s a little frustrating since you can send people back to the start. It’s a combination of luck and memory; Jen dominated. Dragon did not take it well and she had a full crying meltdown.

“It’s more fun when I win. I should always win.” Five year old logic is fascinating.

It reminded me of how much Dragon likes puzzles and how she probably needs more practice losing. So with everyone playing wordle, I remembered the old Mastermind game I had in the basement.

The aim of the game is to guess a 4 colour code from 6 colours. We are playing with no doubles for now. It’s challenging because you only know how many are right and wrong place and how many are right and right place. It doesn’t tell you which ones are right. (With Pegasus, I’ve been playing where I tell him which ones are right and right place.)

Dragon is getting pretty good. She’s won most of her games (not great at teaching losing though) and I just need to remind her to double check her previous plays to double check the logic.

On Sunday, she won with very little help and only 3 tries. She was very proud.

The game is great at teaching logic and correcting based off of previous information.

It also has great memories associated with it for me. I used to play (on the same board) with my mom when I came home from grade school for lunch. It was awesome to come home in the middle of winter to warm soup, fresh bread, and a few rounds of Mastermind. (My logic has definitely improved over the past twenty-five years.)

I hated grade school and that’s one of the few memories that I cherish from that time.

Hopefully Dragon will have just as good memories of the game.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

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