Happy Thanksgiving from the Portal. The Gathering, a harvest cipher maze, is free to play until 30 November. Enter The Gathering

FREE PUZZLES

Start with the tutorials · then break the chains · every answer is a key

① Initiation — the classic challenges

No account needed

The tutorials are unscored practice: complete them in order to unlock each new challenge. Your progress is saved in this browser. The chains here are real, scored puzzles: play them as a guest for free, or with a free account to earn leaderboard points.

② Cascade chains

Free account · scored

See what's new. Each chain is a sequence of locked stages: the answer to one is the key to the next, and the stage's text is sealed with it. The workbench is built into every stage.

The Construct Gates The chain built for the 3D maze: three gates, three ciphers, and each answer is the key to the next door. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~12 min · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play The Operator's Relay A message hops across five relays. Every answer is the key to the next hop — solve them in order. Cryptography · 5 stages · ~29 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account Mirrorshades Steganography for beginners: a message hidden in the least significant bits of a photo, and a word that only one bit plane can see. Everything happens on the page. Image · 2 stages · ~9 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The Wiretap Codebreaking with no keys: break a shift by counting letters, crack a substitution with the solver, and find a Vigenère keyword's length with Kasiski. Everything happens on the page. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~18 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The First Block Blockchain for beginners: fingerprint a block with SHA-256, fold its transactions into a Merkle root and mine the seal. Every tool is built into the puzzle page. Blockchain · 3 stages · ~13 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The Architect's Protocol Three layers of the Architect's old-world cryptography: a rotation lock, a keyed maze and an encoded core. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~10 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play The Architect's Encryption Protocol Binary, then Beaufort, then a columnar transposition — each layer's answer is the next layer's key. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~14 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The Architect's Recursion Protocol A hidden subroutine of the Architect's: three recursive locks, each opened by the last. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~14 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play Caesar Shifty Find the message using the Caesar Shift tool Cryptography · 1 stage · ~2 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play Cypher's Betrayal Protocol A message from Cypher to Agent Smith, sent just before the dinner where he sold out Morpheus. Cryptography · 1 stage · ~3 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play Classic Cipher Cascade A journey through cryptographic history. Master four classic cipher techniques in sequence, where each answer unlocks the next challenge. Perfect for learning how ciphers build upon each other. Cryptography · 4 stages · ~15 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play Logic to Cipher Cascade Solve a logic puzzle, then cascade the answer through position encoding and cipher shifts to reach the final solution. Each stage builds on the previous answer. Logic · 3 stages · ~12 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account Morpheus Quote Decode the message which is a quote from Morpheus and then use the answer to as a clue for the second puzzle! Cryptography · 2 stages · ~7 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play The Hollow The chain inside the haunted maze: tapping in Morse, a moving shift, a keyed alphabet and a message locked twice. Free; the maze itself is free every Halloween. Cryptography · 4 stages · ~19 min · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The Whiteout The chain inside the frozen maze: a shifted note, a mirrored alphabet, a keyword cipher and a message woven on rails. Free; the maze itself is free every winter. Cryptography · 4 stages · ~17 min · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The Drowned Archive The chain inside the sunken maze: a sonar message in Morse, a shifted note, a keyed alphabet and a keyword cipher. Free. Cryptography · 4 stages · ~18 min · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play Station Meridian The chain inside the orbital maze: a shifted notice, telemetry in binary, a keyword cipher and a keyed alphabet. Free. Cryptography · 4 stages · ~17 min · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The Gathering The chain inside the harvest maze: a mirrored note, a shifted one, a keyword cipher and a keyed alphabet. Free; the maze itself is free every November. Cryptography · 4 stages · ~18 min · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ ▶ Play now, no account The Marble Quarry An abandoned marble quarry whose crane cabs, pump house and cutting sheds hide a forgotten monitoring system. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~13 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play New The Amber Cistern A drowned reservoir town whose old water-control tunnels hide notes left by the last engineer before the valves were sealed. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~13 min Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play New The Coral Vault A drowned hall beneath the sea, where coral-crusted corridors and slow currents guard a message left by the last keeper. Cryptography · 3 stages · ~14 min · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔐 Log in to play

Create a free account to play the chains. It takes a minute, and your points go on the leaderboard. Or try one of the no-account chains first.

③ Elite chains

👑 Elite

Advanced cryptography, steganography and elite-level logic. Harder stages, more points.

The Gilded Vault The Elite wing of the 3D maze: a transposition fence, a mirrored key and a message sent in pulses. Each answer hands you the key to the next lock. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite Cipher Cascade Three ciphers stacked like firewalls: a shifted ship name, a Beaufort lock and a keyed alphabet built from a Sentinel program. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite Logic Nexus Three deduction grids — identity, time and space. Pure logic: every clue matters, nothing needs guessing. Logic · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Ledger The chain behind the blockchain maze: fingerprint a block, find the forged one, rebuild a Merkle root and mine the seal. Solved with the Blockchain Lab tools in the workbench. Blockchain · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Mainframe The chain inside the blue maze: a rail fence, a keyed column shuffle, an XOR mask and a message in raw binary. Nothing is substituted here, only moved and masked. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Redline The chain inside the red maze: break a shift cipher by counting letters, then follow the key through Vigenere, Beaufort and a keyed alphabet. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Source The chain inside the gold maze, and the hardest on the site: five gates, every one locked at least twice. Build the chain of steps that undoes each lock in reverse order. Cryptography · 5 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite Sequence Labyrinth Fibonacci, Mersenne primes and perfect cubes — three sequences that guard three doors. Mathematical · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite Cold Storage The chain inside the server farm maze: hexadecimal, Base64 wrapped three deep, an XOR mask and a message in raw binary over a keyword cipher. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Lost Temple The chain inside the ruins maze: the oldest ciphers there are. A Roman shift, a zigzag, letters counted as numbers, and a mirror alphabet shuffled by columns. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Crypt The Elite wing of The Hollow: three locks under the house. A keyed alphabet, a shuffle by columns, and a message wrapped and shifted. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Ice Vault The Elite wing of The Whiteout: three locks cut into the glacier. Morse under a shift, a keyed alphabet, and a message turned to numbers and reversed. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite Visual Enigma Steganography: a word hidden in one colour channel, another in the least significant bits, and a final key that ties them together. Image · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite Temporal Paradox Order a corrupted timeline, find where three futures converge, and trace a loop that has no beginning. Logic · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Dust Observatory An abandoned desert observatory where its last keeper left a trail of hidden messages leading to one final signal. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Sunken Arcade A flooded seaside arcade where old game cabinets still glow and hide messages left behind by a vanished crew of hackers. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Glass Orchard A huge abandoned greenhouse where vines have grown through old computer racks, and a hidden network still hums beneath the leaves. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Tidewire Station A forgotten coastal cable station where old undersea lines still hum, and every room holds a message left by the last engineer. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Lantern Docks A silent night harbor of stacked containers and sleeping cranes, where the last shift left a trail of hidden messages. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Orbital Greenhouse A silent greenhouse ring on a drifting space station, where the last gardener hid messages among the seed trays and the airlocks. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Night Market The chain inside the neon maze: a keyword cipher keyed by the place itself, a shuffled message, a mirror-keyed cipher and a note locked twice. Elite. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Clockwork Cistern A vast underground reservoir beneath a sleeping city, ruled by brass machinery and a terminal that was never switched off. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Frostbound Signal A frozen maze of ice-block walls where a lost weather beacon still sends messages through the falling snow. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Crucible The chain inside the foundry maze: a mirror-keyed cipher keyed by the place itself, a message woven on rails, a keyword cipher and an order locked twice. Elite. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Root Cellar The Elite wing of The Gathering: three locks under the farmhouse. Morse under a mirror, a shuffled message, and a note locked twice. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Amber Carousel A shuttered seaside amusement pier whose carousel hides a buried terminal and a trail of messages left by its last engineer. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Neon Aquarium A shuttered city aquarium whose glowing tanks now cool a hidden server farm, with one message left behind in each hall. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Violet Rainfall A dreamlike maze of corridors where violet code drifts like rain, hiding a trail of messages left by a vanished sleeper. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Silent Runway A decommissioned airfield where an abandoned network still hums, and each building holds a message left by the last engineer. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Pale Beacon A silent coastal lighthouse that secretly hides a hacker's relay, with messages left for anyone who climbs the tower. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Drifting Spindle A pale hull-panel ring station turning under stars, where loose cargo drifts and airlock doors shut without warning. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Sodium Alley A rain-soaked city block at night, where drones sweep the alleys and a courier crew hides its messages in plain sight. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Tally Cloister A silent cloister of hex-block corridors where an old clerk's ledger became a building, with every sum set in stone. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Glass Foundry A derelict glassworks on the edge of a sleeping city, where each cooling furnace hides a note left by the last night shift. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Cobalt Harbor A fog-wrapped harbor town where a missing dockmaster left a trail of notes among the cranes, boats and net lofts. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Copper Apiary A rooftop apiary above a sleeping city, where the bees and the sensors are hiding a secret. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Paper Lantern A hillside town's lamp-making workshop, where a festival is about to begin and a maker has left a trail of notes behind. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Velvet Orchard A hidden rooftop orchard above a sleeping city, tended by gardeners who leave their secrets in the leaves. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite The Brass Orrery A forgotten clockwork workshop on a seaside cliff, where a master tinkerer hid a final message among his moving models of the sky. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Silent Lighthouse A decommissioned island lighthouse whose keeper left behind a trail of notes for whoever could still read the lamp room. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Tidal Observatory A sea-battered observatory on a rocky island where a lone keeper left messages for whoever could follow his trail. Cryptography · 4 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Neon Arcade A forgotten basement arcade whose cabinets still blink with messages left by a vanished game designer. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Harvest Signal A corn maze at the end of harvest, where a farmer's old radio hides messages among scarecrows, pumpkins and strutting wild turkeys. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Basalt Crucible A hidden forge deep inside a volcano, where glowing cracks light the black walls and steam vents guard the corridors. Cryptography · 4 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Silver Greenhouse An abandoned botanical research dome where an old climate controller still hums and hides messages among the plants. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Salt Telegraph A decommissioned coastal telegraph station where old operators left hidden messages in the machinery and the maps. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Velvet Aquarium A shuttered city aquarium whose old control system still whispers messages through its tanks, pumps and lights. Cryptography · 3 stages Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite New The Crimson Cascade A maze of falling red code inside an overheating relay tower, where a failing system leaves warnings for anyone brave enough to run its halls. Cryptography · 3 stages · 🧭 3D maze Difficulty: ★★★★★ 🔓 Explore Elite