How to Play Cryptograms

Cryptograms is a word puzzle where players must complete quotes from famous authors, athletes, and public figures. The quotes tend to have about ⅓ of the letters filled in, so you’ll need to do some clever educational guessing and problem-solving in order to make it far in the game.

How to Play Cryptograms

The controls of Cryptograms are super straightforward. All you need to do is click on a square and type in which letter you think it is. If the letter is correct, every other square that uses the letter will be filled in. If you guess incorrectly, nothing will happen and you will lose a star.

Lose 5 stars and the round is over, so make sure to make educated guesses! If you just start randomly guessing without thinking, it’s going to be a short game of Cryptograms. Your stars reset every single round, so it doesn’t really matter if you get the quote with no mistakes or with four mistakes. As long as you get the quote with less than 5 mistakes, you’re golden!

Cryptograms Strategy

Cryptograms is a lot less of a forgiving game than something like Hangman. Don’t worry though, we won’t just throw you to the wolves without any help. Let’s go over 4 different strategies to help you succeed as you continue to learn how to play Cryptograms. 

Fill in the short words first

Oftentimes, there will be words that are easy to guess. For example, if there is a two letter word and you know that the first letter is an ‘I’, you have a pretty good chance that the second letter is either an ‘M’ or a ‘T’. Both ‘it’ and ‘I’m’ are extremely common words that can be found in a ton of quotes, especially as the first word in a sentence.

There are some other key words that are just generally found in language, such as ‘the’ and ‘we’. If you can think about these commonalities in language, you’ll become a much better educational guesser when learning how to play Cryptograms. 

Look at who the quote is by

Taking a peak at the author of the quote can give you some context as to how the language might sound. For example, if you have a quote by William Shakespeare, you might be more inclined to think about more old-timey sentence structure.

The figures being quoted can also give you hints as to what the topic of the quote is about. For example, athletes like Muhammad Ali tend to have quotes about victory or success. On the other hand, scientists like Nikola Tesla might have quotes relating more to topics like electricity and creativity.

Think about common prefixes and suffixes

The sentences we create are littered with prefixes and suffixes. For example, if you see a word that ends with -in and then a blank, there is a good chance that the last letter is a G. This is because the -ing suffix is extremely common.

Tons of other prefixes and suffixes are around, you just have to think about how they might apply to the quote. Some examples include pre-, dis-, -ery, and -age. 

Ask for hints

Of course, some of the quotes can just be flat-out difficult. If you really get into a rut and can’t seem to think your way out of it, there is no shame in just asking for a hint.

You will be given three hints at the start of a round. To get a hint, you must watch a video. This will unlock a blank letter of your choosing. There is nothing wrong with asking for a hint — as long as you get through the round, nothing else really matters. 

So now that you have learned some tips on how to play Cryptograms, get out there and get solving! Not only will you sharpen your puzzle-solving skills, but you will also learn some interesting quotes in the process.