Codebreaker: Atari Archive Episode 19

It's another keyboard controller title in this video, this time based on a pair of very old but well-known math and logic games. The titular Codebreaker game features Atari's take on the old Bulls and Cows mind game, while Nim brings the ancient object logic game to the VCS.
Realistically, there are other ways to play both of these, but the VCS cart does a solid job of giving players an electronic avenue if they're in the mood to exercise their minds instead of their reflexes.
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[@Phediuk]

awesome work. You're the vanguard for research on 2600 games.

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

A great episode - episodes covering games like this are always appreciated as they're not the type of game to get coverage by other channels.
Really enjoyed learning about the background history of the underlying games for sure!

[@absoluteacw]

Agree

[@Atari2600_Dude]

Another great episode :) Keyboard controllers are becoming harder to find these days.

[@sandal_thong8631]

I didn't see any keypads or the games that used them at the thrift store around 1990.

[@Zoyx]

We played a game like this during lunch in the 1970s. We called it Bagels. Fermi for a number in the right spot. Pico for a number in the wrong spot. Bagels if you get skunked.

[@Pikachu132]

To quote Merzabad the Chronogamer: "Codebreaker requires the use of the keyboard controller. For what reason? I do not know, other than, possibly, to sell keyboard controllers or to just have an excuse to make keyboard controllers. The Channel F version of these games did not require a keyboard, I don't see why the Atari versions has to."
Because yeah, there's really no need for this game to require buying specific controllers. Brain Games was designed around them, while Codebreaker just uses them as a number entry tool. Both Blackjack and Basic Math required the player to enter numbers, while Hangman required them to enter letters, and all three played perfectly fine with standard controllers everyone had. This cart could've easily done the same.

[@sandal_thong8631]

I can understand the last game, "Touch Me" in Brain Games wasn't visually appealing since it came out before Simon and the programmers didn't want to make it. If there are 6 tones they could have done the 6 basic colors.
However Codebreaker came out after Mastermind, and maybe Super Mastermind, so there's no good reason not to use color pegs, other than making a game with numbers to sell keypad controllers for. I loved both Masterminds as a child, and my brother reminded me I made a version on my Commodore computer (around the time I was in college) to have the computer guess your hidden "code" in 10. The internet says it's been shown to be beatable in a certain number of guesses depending on the number of different colors and the length of the code (4 for Mastermind, 5 for Super Mastermind).
Incidentally they did a reunion shot with the couple on the cover of the Mastermind box 25 years later. The man was a salon owner, and the woman was a computer programmer in college; so he was the money and she was the brains!

[@mr.pavone9719]

Hey dad, can we buy $80 worth of controllers and software to play a game that only requires a piece of paper and a pencil?

[@sandal_thong8631]

Nim doesn't seem that great to be worth including. I liked Nine Men Morris as a kid. They could have added that, instead. I saw it as a mini-game in one of Sierra's Quest for Glory games.

[@sandal_thong8631]

Green and blue Atari Logbook challenge: Play game 10 (four-digit code) 10x, breaking 10 codes in as few tries as possible.
Pro (Clever De-coder): 72 guesses,
Master (Super Sleuth): 60 guesses,
Wizard (Master Codebreaker): 54 guesses.
I think Star Raiders is the only game on Atari to use the keypad seriously after 1979. Another adventure-style game has you use the second joystick to switch between items. At the arcade there were games with two joysticks (Battlezone), one joystick and a wheel (Tron), or a joystick with a bunch of buttons (Defender). But those weren't viable with "loose" controllers at home. Intellilvision (1979) showed what a keypad as part of a controller could do for sports games, as well as having multiple fire buttons, but it gets criticism for having a disc instead of a joystick. Sadly, there wasn't foresight in making the Atari VCS or Odyssey² joysticks to have more than one fire button, thus limiting games.

[@cdrugly]

And today we have people crapping themselves over Wordle like it’s an original idea.