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Cryptle #18 · Thu 17 Sep 2026

This one is from the archive. Play it for practice — past puzzles never count toward a streak. Today’s cipher is here.

3 guesses to crack the cipher. One cipher each day.

How to play Cryptle

The block on the page is an ordinary English sentence with a cipher laid over it. Every letter is still in there. Your job is to read it.

  • We tell you which cipher it is Today it’s Columnar Transposition, and the key is keyword GOLD. The work is the decoding, not guessing what you’re looking at.
  • Type the decoded message Capitals, spaces and punctuation are all ignored — the third stone and THETHIRDSTONE both count.
  • 3 guesses, then the day is done A wrong guess tells you whether your answer is even the right length, and which part of your method to doubt.
  • Solve it and your streak grows Miss a day, or run out of guesses, and it goes back to zero. That’s the whole prize — there’s nothing to win but the run itself.
  • A new one lands at midnight Past days stay playable in the archive, but practice never counts toward a streak.

Never solved one before? The guides walk through every cipher we use, one at a time.

Columnar Transposition

keyword GOLD

PELIXTRPIVEZOLXHIOSE

Need a nudge?

Written in rows under the keyword, then read out one column at a time — columns taken in alphabetical order of their letter.

Learn the method: how to solve columnar transposition

The answer

THE PRIZE POOL IS LIVE

How it works

Every letter of the answer is already in front of you — they are simply in the wrong order. Counting the letters is the first useful thing you can do. This one is Columnar Transposition. The key: keyword GOLD. Written in rows under the keyword, then read out one column at a time — columns taken in alphabetical order of their letter. Rebuild the grid, read it back in the original order, and the first letters come out T H E. The answer was THE PRIZE POOL IS LIVE.

Next time, check your work with the Columnar Transposition.

Today’s cipher →

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