Try to guess the hidden combination of colors. You will be given limited information about each guess you make, enabling you to refine the next guess.
One setting changes what the combination can be, and a board’s name in the Type menu says when it is on:
On a touch screen, a tap does what a click does, and a long press what a right-click does (more ways to right-click). A key the puzzle’s controls show as a button can be pressed there instead of on a keyboard.
Build a guess by pressing the color buttons below the grid. Each color goes into the first empty peg of the row you are filling, and the ring shows you where the next one will land. Press Submit when the row is full. The small circles beside it give you your feedback: black pegs indicate how many of the colors you guessed were the right color in the right place, and white pegs indicate how many of the rest were the right colors but in the wrong place.
Tap a peg in the row you are filling to choose where the next color goes instead — useful for changing your mind about one peg, and the only way to leave a gap in the middle of a row if you have turned blanks on. Clear empties the peg you chose, or rubs out the last color you placed if you have not chosen one.
Right-click a peg in that row — or hold a finger on it — to hold it, marking that color to be carried into your next guess. A held peg is kept when you clear the rest, so the colors you place go into the gaps around it. Press L to number the colors, which can help when two of them are hard to tell apart.
Left and right move the cursor along the row, and a color’s digit places it — the digit shown on that color’s button. Backspace rubs one out and Space holds a peg. Once the row is full the cursor rests one step past its last peg, where Enter submits the guess. Enter on a peg switches Marks mode on and off, and in Marks mode the digits rule colors out of the slot the cursor is on and Backspace puts them all back. D does whatever Backspace does.
Below the rows is the answer row: one slot for each peg of the hidden combination, each holding a small square of every color that could still be in that slot. It is where you keep track of what you have worked out: when you rule a color out of a slot, its square goes, and the colors that are left are the ones you still have to decide between. Each color always sits in the same place in a slot, so you can tell at a glance which one has gone.
To rule colors out of a slot, tap the slot. The frame moves there, and the color buttons now rule their color out of that slot, or put it back if it is already out; Clear puts every color back. Tapping a peg in the row you are filling takes you back to entering pegs. Marks switches between the two as well, keeping the frame in the same column, so whichever row the frame is on is always what the color buttons will change.
Check & save checks the answer row against the hidden combination, as it checks your answers in every other puzzle. A slot where you have ruled out the color that is really there gets a red frame. It says which slot, not which color, and it never judges your guesses: a guess that isn’t the answer is how you learn more.
Next hint first points out anything the scored rows prove that your answer row does not show yet, and rules those colors out of their slots for you, as marks you could have made yourself. It reasons only from the scores, never from the marks already in your answer row, and it waits until no slot rules out its own color, as Check & save does.
The ring’s mark here is a frame, because it follows the square shape of the color blocks, so the hint calls those colors framed.
Some things a single row tells you for certain:
Once some slots are narrowed down, a row can say more. If only two of a row’s pegs can still be in their right places and it scored two black pegs, those two must be right. And when settled slots already account for all of a row’s black pegs, none of its other pegs can be in place.
When nothing more follows, the hint suggests a guess, framing one color in each slot. The guess always fits every score so far, so it could be the answer, and the hint tells you how many answers are still possible and the most that could be left after it. That part is a suggestion rather than a deduction, and the hint says so by counting rather than arguing.
These parameters are available from the ‘Custom type…’ option on the ‘Type’ menu.