How to play

Each puzzle is one quotation written in code. Every letter has been swapped for a different letter, and the swap holds for the whole puzzle: if X stands for E once, it stands for E everywhere. Work out the swaps and the quotation appears. The author and source stay hidden until you solve it.

Spaces, apostrophes and other punctuation are left as they are. No letter ever stands for itself, so a coded A is never a real A.

Controls

Pick a letter: tap or click any coded letter on the board. Every copy of it highlights.
Enter a guess: tap a letter on the on-screen keyboard, or type it. The guess fills in everywhere that coded letter appears, and the selection jumps to the next blank letter.
Move around: the arrow keys step through the coded letters in reading order.
Clear letter (or Backspace or Delete) empties the selected letter.
Undo (or Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on a Mac) takes back your last change.

Letters you have already used turn grey on the keyboard, but you can still pick them. If the same real letter is assigned to two coded letters, both are marked and a message tells you there is a conflict. Nothing stops you from carrying on, but the puzzle cannot be solved until that is fixed.

There is no submit button. The puzzle finishes the moment every letter is right.

Difficulty

Difficulty depends on how long the quotation is and how many letters you get for free. Free letters are filled in at the start, shown as dark blocks, and locked. Hint letters look the same.

Easy: up to 42 letters, with 6 letters given.
Medium: 43 to 64 letters, with 3 letters given.
Hard: 65 letters or more, with none given.

Modes

Daily gives one puzzle per difficulty for each calendar date, using your device's local date, so a new set arrives at your midnight. Everyone playing the same date and difficulty gets the same quotation and the same code.

Practice picks a random quotation at your chosen difficulty and avoids the ones you have seen most recently. An unfinished practice puzzle waits for you; New puzzle replaces it with a fresh one.

Past dailies lists earlier daily puzzles for the current difficulty, back to November 1, 2026. Solved days show your time.

Hints and Check

Hint reveals the letter you have selected and locks it. If nothing is selected, it reveals the most common coded letter that is still blank or wrong. Hints have no limit and add nothing to your time, but the number you used is shown with your result.

Check marks any wrong guesses on the board and tells you how many are wrong and how many are left. It never reveals the right answer, it has no limit, and it does not appear in your result.

Scoring

There are no points. A solve is recorded with its time and its hint count. The timer starts as soon as a puzzle opens and pauses while the page is out of view, for example when you switch tabs.

Your statistics track puzzles solved, average time, and your best time on each difficulty. Your streak counts the days in a row you have solved that day's daily, at any difficulty. Solving more than one difficulty in a day still adds one. Past dailies and practice puzzles count toward solved totals and times, but not toward the streak.

Strategy

Start with short words. A one-letter word is almost always A or I. Three-letter words are often THE or AND.
Look at apostrophes. A single letter after one is usually S or T.
Watch for doubles. Paired letters are often LL, SS, EE, OO or TT.
Find the common letters. E and T tend to show up most in English, so try them on the coded letters you see most.
Expect old wording. Many quotations come from the King James Bible and older books, so THOU, HATH and words ending in ETH are good guesses.
Use the no-self rule. A coded letter cannot be itself, which helps when you are down to the last few.
Guess freely. Undo costs nothing, so try a word and see whether the letters it creates make sense elsewhere.

Questions

Why did my streak go back to zero?

You have to solve the current day's daily on consecutive days. Missing a full day ends the streak, and solving that missed day later from Past dailies does not restore it.

Can I change difficulty partway through?

Yes. Each difficulty keeps its own puzzle, so switching does not lose your work.

If I leave, is my puzzle saved?

Yes, in this browser, along with your time. It does not follow you to another device or browser.

Do hints or checks stop a puzzle counting?

No. A solve counts toward your streak and statistics however many you used.

Does sharing give away the answer?

No. The shared text has the date or mode, difficulty, time and hint count, with no words from the quotation.