Finishing the game
Have you worked out what the code should be? You should have got green-yellow-white-pink. The black feedback marker for guess five must have applied to the pink, meaning that the yellow was in the wrong place. That makes it go into position two (there's nowhere else for it to go!), so the green has to go into position one. Don't worry if it seemed a bit tricky - you'll pick it up in no time at all.
Once you finish a game, we'll record how many guesses it took you to find the code. We'll also tell you how long it took you from start to finish, and what your position on the weekly leaderboard is. From here, you can click "my games" to head back to your user page and try another game.
You can have as many games in progress as you like (just switch between them on your user page), but once you've started a game, you need to finish it within 48 hours, otherwise it will expire. This is to stop people from starting loads of games, but only finishing the ones which they've done well, so that they have a better leaderboard ranking. We know that sometimes things crop up out of the blue and you won't be able to finish a game, so you're allowed to let two expire each week without receiving a penalty. Any more than that will count as taking fourteen guesses (that's the maximum number of guesses, plus two as a penalty).
Leaderboards and statistics
We take the details of everyone's games and use them to calculate a weekly leaderboard. At the moment, your score is simply the average number of guesses it takes you to find codes. In order to qualify for the leaderboard, you need to play at least five games in a week - this is to make sure that people don't play one good game, then stop. When you've qualified for the leaderboard, your current rank will be shown on your user page, and you'll be able to see yourself in on the leaderboard over on the statistics page. The statistics page also singles out players who have achieved a particular target (for example playing the most solo games).
The week runs from midnight Sunday morning to midnight Saturday night (UK time), and at the end of the week we hand out awards to a few lucky players. Even if you don't finish the week at the top of the leaderboard, you still might win something - there are awards for achieving other feats, such as sending the most challenges, or completing a game in the fastest time.
Sending challenges
If you want to try to get further up the leaderboard, you can either play a few more games to try to improve your average, or - and this is the sneaky bit - come up with a fiendishly tricky combination and send it to some who's doing better than you. If they take too many guesses to work it out, you might manage to knock them down a few places! To challenge another player, either go to their page (click their name on any page) and enter a code in the "challenge this player" section, or head to your own page, pick a code and enter their username in the "challenge another player" section.
You'll see the game appear in your list of sent challenges - just click view to see the current state of the game, including any guesses and feedback. Chances are that the person you've challenged isn't around right now, but you don't need to wait around - we'll send you an email when they finish the game. If you'd rather not receive any emails from us, then you can specify this on your preferences page.
That's all there is to it!
OK, so that's all of the important stuff - of course, the best way to learn is to get stuck in to a few games. Don't get disheartened if you're near the bottom of the leaderboard to start with - you'll soon find your own technique, and join the struggle for the top spaces. Remember that you can always see how other people play: just visit a few players' pages, and look at their completed games - you might be able to pick up some tips.
If you've got any questions that aren't covered in here (or in the FAQ), then you can always leave a comment over on the Codex blog, where someone will certainly be able to help you out.
Have fun,
Team req.co.uk