Cipher Details

Imagine a famous quote where every letter has been swapped for a different one. Every A is now a Q, every E is a T, and so on, all the way through. It looks like nonsense – until you crack one letter, then another, and the whole thing suddenly unravels in front of you.

That’s a cryptogram, and Cipher Desk has 250 of them. They’re quotes from writers, thinkers and famous characters, plus a few old proverbs. This guide explains how the game works and walks you through the code-breaking tricks that make them much easier than they look.

How it works

Each puzzle is a quote with its author underneath. Every letter in both has been replaced by another letter, and the swap is the same all the way through. So if G stands for O once, it stands for O everywhere. Spaces and punctuation are left as they are, which gives you lots of clues.

Click any square and type the letter you think it really is. Every square with the same code letter fills in at once, which is very satisfying. You can also use:

• Arrow keys to move around, and Backspace to erase.
• Space to jump to the next empty square.
• The on-screen keyboard if you’re on a phone or tablet.

Each real letter can only be used once in the key. If you type E somewhere new, it’s taken away from wherever you put it before. Letters shown in green are fixed – either given to you at the start, or revealed by a hint.

Easy, Medium and Hard

The puzzles run from shortest to longest, and they’re split into three levels:

Longer doesn’t always mean harder, though. A long quote has more repeated letters and more little words to latch on to, so once you’ve got the hang of it, some of the later puzzles fall quite quickly.

Let’s crack one together

Here’s a practice cryptogram. It isn’t one of the 250 in the game, so no spoilers:

QF QHHST Q RQN ATTHL ZIT RGEZGK QVQN.
— HKGCTKW

Step 1: the lonely letter. Q sits on its own as a one-letter word. In English that’s almost always A or I. Q also turns up six times, more than any other letter, so it’s a very common one. Let’s guess A.

Step 2: the double letter. QHHST is five letters, starting with A, with a double letter in the middle: A _ _ _ _. APPLE fits perfectly. Now H is P, S is L and T is E.

Step 3: the most common word. ZIT is three letters ending in E. THE is the most common word in English, so Z is T and I is H.

Step 4: let the letters snowball. ATTHL now reads _ E E P _, which must be KEEPS. RQN is _ A _, and QVQN is A _ A _. A little further along, RGEZGK is _ _ _ T _ _. Try DAY for RQN and you get D _ _ T _ _ – DOCTOR. Then A _ A Y can only be AWAY.

Step 5: the author. HKGCTKW now reads P R O _ E R _. That’s PROVERB. Solved: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Notice how we never had to guess wildly. One sensible guess (A) opened up a word (APPLE), which gave us letters for the next word, and so on.

Code-breaking tips

Start with one-letter words. They’re nearly always A or I. If there are two different one-letter words, you’ve probably got both.

Look for THE and AND. They’re the most common three-letter words in English. If the same three-letter code word appears more than once, it’s very likely THE.

Use the apostrophes. A single letter after an apostrophe is usually S or T (as in IT’S or DON’T). Two letters after one might be LL, RE or VE.

Spot double letters. The most common pairs in English are LL, EE, SS, OO and TT. A double at the end of a short word is very often LL or SS.

Use the letter counts. Underneath the puzzle is a strip showing how many times each code letter appears, alongside the most common letters in English: E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, L, U. The code letter that appears most often is a good bet for E or T. Short quotes don’t always follow the rule, though, so use it as a nudge rather than a certainty.

No letter stands for itself. In Cipher Desk, a code letter is never the same as the real letter. If you see an E in the puzzle, you know the answer there isn’t E. It’s a small thing, but it can rule out a guess.

Think about who said it. The author’s name is encoded too, and it’s usually someone famous – a well-known writer, a philosopher, a president or even Sherlock Holmes. If you can guess the name from its length and a couple of letters, you get a whole batch of letters for free.

Use Check before you get too far. One wrong letter can send you down a dead end. The Check button marks any wrong letters in red, so it’s worth pressing when things stop making sense.

Hints, checking and revealing

If you’re stuck, press Hint and the game fills in one correct letter for you, in green. The game keeps count of how many hints you used, so you can try to use fewer next time. Clear guesses wipes your letters so you can start again, and Reveal answer shows the whole quote. Both of those ask you to tap twice, so you can’t press them by accident. A revealed puzzle won’t count as solved.

Questions people ask

Is it free?
Yes, all 250 puzzles are free, with no account or sign-up.

Is my progress saved?
Yes. Your letters, time and hints are saved in your browser, and the game opens on the last puzzle you were playing. It stays on the device you played on, so a different phone or computer starts fresh.

Can I skip around?
Yes. Use the arrows to go to the next or previous puzzle, or press “All puzzles” to see all 250. That page shows which ones you’ve solved, started or revealed.

Is there a time limit?
No. There’s a clock so you can see how long you took, but it’s there for fun and never runs out. It pauses when you leave the page.

Where do the quotes come from?
They’re well-known lines from writers, philosophers and historical figures, along with some traditional proverbs.

Over to you

Grab a pen if it helps, open Cipher Desk, and start with puzzle No. 1. The first few Easy ones are a great way to practise the tricks above. And if you’d like a change of pace afterwards, the Crossword page has 24 puzzles to try.

Happy code-breaking!