I've just spent 15 minutes in a white, empty room attempting to understand steganography. Steganography, I've learned, is a form of cryptography whereby a secret message is hidden within another seemingly innocuous one.
I'm playing Cypher—Matthew Brown's latest venture following CrossCells, SquareCells and HexCells—and I'm stuck on puzzle three:
Typing "hint" into a podium that faces the conundrum informs me to look for a different perspective. Upon closer inspection, I discover this (click the top right to expand):
Elsewhere in the room, I'm met with several other text samples—ranging from Edgar Allan Poe extracts, to grocery lists and poems—all of which must be deciphered in order to progress to the next room, where I understand different aspects of the discipline await. Needless to say, I'm still trapped in room one.
But it's great fun. And there's something incredibly soothing about cracking a code against Cypher's meandering piano score and pristine setting. Granted, I've nearly lost the plot on more than one occasion, but the game's eureka moments outweigh its stressful ones.
Cypher is out now on Steam for just £3.99/$4.99. If puzzle games are your jam, take a wee break from the Kingdom Comes and PUBGs and whichever other time-sinkers you're into at the moment and give it a spin—I reckon you'll like it.
