By Waffle Wofsey; adapted by Asilata Bapat and Don Laackman
Answer: SUPER MARIO
Solving the initial two Mastermind puzzles yields the phrase TRADE CLUES. Additionally, we see that we should reuse TRADE and CLUES down at the very bottom, where there are a pair of crossed out (5,0)s.
Both of these observations suggest what to do next. We now play two more Mastermind games, again with the answers TRADE and CLUES. However, the clue words for TRADE are now used in the CLUES game, and vice-versa. In this way, we can figure out the values of the asterisks. For example, APRON and TRADE share two letters, neither of which is in the right place, so in the second set of games, APRON will be judged as (0,2). Here are all the values of the asterisks in the second set of games:
APRON (0,2) CARTS (2,0) CALLS (0,1) CHRIS (2,0) CLOUT (0,1) CREDO (1,1) COLBY (0,0) DAZED (1,0) COLIC (0,0) DEITY (0,1) COLON (0,0) ERASE (0,2) COMFY (0,0) FATED (1,0) COULD (0,1) FOLLY (0,1) EGYPT (0,2) MAGES (2,0) FUDGE (1,1) MILKS (1,1) GLOOM (0,0) MODEL (1,1) HELIX (0,1) REEDY (0,1) KNOTS (0,1) SNARE (0,2) LYRIC (0,1) CLUES(5,0)(0,0) MELEE (1,0) MOUND (0,1) PASTA (0,2) PODGY (0,1) QUAIL (1,0) ROOMY (0,1) TUBBY (1,0) ZOEAS (0,2) TRADE(5,0)(0,2)
These games, once the (5,0)s have been replaced by other clues, have unique new solutions, SUPER and MARIO, and hence the answer is SUPER MARIO.