Helpful Gaming Hints: Operation Gumball

Felicity Tiger here, ready to help you be the best gamer you can be! Today I want to talk to you about Operation Gumball.

Operation Gumball is a game of logic. It’s a lot of fun – if you know how to play! Let’s have a look at a level and really break it down.

The goal of this game is to figure out the secret number. In this level, there are three numerals in the number. There are lots of strategies for figuring out the correct answer, but one that I’ve always liked is the one I’ve shown here. The first thing to know is what the balls mean. A red ball means you’ve got a correct number, but it’s in the wrong spot. A green ball means you’ve got a correct number in the correct spot. No balls means none of the numbers you guessed are right. Got it? Let’s get started! First, type in 1, 2, 3 – and see what you get. In this instance, we got one red ball. That means that one of the numbers is correct but in the wrong spot. Next, we type in 4, 5, 6. We got two red balls – that means that we know we have two correct numbers, but they’re both in the wrong spots. To determine which of the numbers (1, 2, or 3) is correct, we type in 1, 1, 1. In this case, it turns out that 1 is right. From this information, we know that 1 cannot be in the first spot (we know that from the top line). Now, to figure out which numbers are right from 4, 5, 6, we type in 4, 4, 4. We see that 4 is wrong, which means the two numbers HAVE to be 5 and 6. And both of them are in the wrong spot. Knowing this allows us to realize that there are only a couple of possible correct combinations:

Meaning that the final number can be 561 OR 615. We take a guess with 561 and we’re right!

As you can see, if you approach Operation Gumball strategically and logically, it’s pretty easy to crack the code! Keep trying and you’ll reach level 30 in no time!