The rules, step by step
- A secret code is dealt: four pegs, six colours, repeats allowed.
- Everyone breaks the same code at once, on their own phone. Nobody sees anybody else’s rows.
- Play a row and it comes back marked: a filled dot for every peg that is the right colour in the right place, a hollow one for every peg that is the right colour in the wrong place.
- The marks never tell you WHICH peg — that is the whole game.
- Ten rows each. Crack it and you score 100, less 10 for every row after the first — never below 10. Run out of rows and you score nothing.
- First one home takes 50 more — and cuts the round down to forty-five seconds for everybody still hunting.
Scoring and the fiddly bits
The deal
Four pegs from six colours, repeats allowed, dealt by the game rather than set by a player. Nobody at the table knows it.
How a row is marked
Exacts are counted first, then colours from whatever is left on both sides — so four of one colour against a code holding one reads as a single mark, not four.
Rows and the clock
Ten rows each, or twelve on the five-peg board, and one clock for the whole round — two, three or five minutes as the host sets it.
What a solve pays
A hundred points minus ten for every row after the first, never below ten, plus fifty for the first player home. Out of rows or out of time scores nothing.
Nobody sees your board
Your rows and their marks never leave your phone. What is public is how many rows each player has spent and who is already home — that is the race.
Questions about Crack the Code
Is Crack the Code free?
Yes. Every game on Table Party is free, with no accounts, no adverts and nothing to buy.
How many people do you need for Crack the Code?
Between 2 and 12. Below 2 there are not enough of you for the game to work.
Do we need to download anything?
No. One person opens the site and starts a room; everybody else joins by typing the room code on their own phone. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.
Can we play Crack the Code over a video call?
Yes. Share the room code in the chat and play with the call running — everything private stays on each player’s own phone.
Play Crack the Code online
Free, in the browser, with everyone on their own phone.