Word Mastermind, Jotto and Wordle
If you've played Jotto, you already know Word Mastermind. If you've played Wordle, it will feel familiar, but it asks you to think differently.
Jotto
Jotto is a pencil-and-paper word game for two players from the 1950s. Each player thinks of a secret five-letter word, and they take turns guessing each other's. After each guess, the other player says how many letters the guess has in common with their word, and nothing more. The first to find the other's word wins.
Word Mastermind is Jotto, played online, with a few rules made exact:
- The game does the counting, so a miscount can never send you the wrong way.
- Each letter counts once: the score is the number of different letters the two words share, and a secret word never repeats a letter.
- The words come from the game's own list, so there are no arguments about what's a word.
- Draws are fair: if the player who went first finds the word, the other gets one final guess to draw.
- You choose how much help you get, from Easy, where the game marks the letters it can work out, to Extreme, where you have to remember your own guesses.
The name comes from Mastermind, the code-breaking board game, where every guess is answered with clues and you work out the hidden code from them. Word Mastermind does the same with words.
Wordle
Wordle is a one-player puzzle: one word a day, in six guesses. Word Mastermind differs in a few big ways:
| Wordle | Word Mastermind | |
|---|---|---|
| What a guess tells you | Which letters are in the word, and which are in the right place | Only how many letters are shared: never which, never where |
| Guesses | Six | As many as you need; fewer is better |
| Players | One | One, or two racing to each other's word, against the computer or a friend |
| How often | One puzzle a day | As many games as you like, plus a Daily Rush of 4 themed words with a leaderboard |
Because a score never says which letters matched, Word Mastermind is less about spelling patterns and more about logic: comparing scores across guesses to rule letters in and out. Our strategy guide shows how.
Try it
Word Mastermind is free, with no ads, and runs in your browser on any phone or computer. Read the rules or start a game.