Join the Official Discord
Cryptle #22 · Mon 21 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 Vigenère, and the key is key COMPASS. 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.

Vigenère

key COMPASS

VOSLHGQQIEDLNWYWFW

Need a nudge?

A Caesar shift that changes every letter, stepping through the key word over and over.

Learn the method: how to solve vigenère

The answer

TAG WHO YOU SOLVE WITH

How it works

This is a shift cipher whose shift keeps changing. That is why letter frequency looks flat and nothing obvious jumps out. This one is Vigenère. The key: key COMPASS. A Caesar shift that changes every letter, stepping through the key word over and over. Line the key COMPASS up under the message and undo each letter's own shift. The opening letters come back as T A G. The answer was TAG WHO YOU SOLVE WITH.

Today’s cipher →

Ready for a real one?

These are the same techniques our monthly hunts are built on

One hunt a month, a real prize pool, and puzzles that take more than a coffee break. Members get every monthly hunt included.

See membership