Ink Cipher

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Ink Cipher is a Puzzle game released on PC in 2018 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game has players solving a crossword-style puzzle, but rather than filling in words using trivia questions, this game has players trying to determine which letters of the alphabet correspond to each of the 26 numbers used on the game board, making this judgment primarily based on context.

So, for example, you might see a word on the board as C 23 D. Using this, you would be able to determine that 23 has to be a vowel, but it could be an “A” to spell “cad”, a “O” to spell “cod”, or a “U” to spell “cud”. However, perhaps you look elsewhere on the board and see 7 23 23 D 19 I 2 8 E D, and while you may not know what that word is yet, seeing 23 twice would let you know that 23 has to be a letter that you could see as a double letter, something that’s extremely unlikely for “A” or “U”, but fairly common for “O”. Slotting “O” into 23 then makes the second word 7 O O D 19 I 2 8 E D, and perhaps you might be able to work out what that word is now.

If your eyes are glossing over at this point in the review, take that to mean that this game probably isn’t for you.

In fact, I suspect this game probably isn’t for most people. The vocabulary this game uses is pretty esoteric – in just the third puzzle, I spotted the words “vituperator”, “denitrification”, and “soliloquy”. While some of these words you may be able to guess at due to process of elimination, or simply by solving in other words first to have the number assignments revealed, there are some words that contain the only use of a letter in the entire puzzle, meaning that unless you’re a human dictionary, you’ll be doing a bit of guesswork.

The other issue here is that the tools players are given to assist them in solving these puzzles aren’t ideal. I really wish this game contained a Sudoku-like ability to “mark” numbers with letters that they may potentially be, but unfortunately the only assist tool that seems to be here is the ability to take a one-minute penalty to reveal a random letter in the puzzle.

The controls in this game are adequate, but not spectacular. Players have the option to slowly move your selection across each tile on the game board, or to use an on-screen cursor. There’s also the ability to have a “letter wheel” pop up when selecting a tile on the board so you can more quickly assign those letters, or you can opt to drag-and-drop to either the tile on the board or the associated number on the sidelines. Neither quite feels ideal, but they all work. Really, the one control option that I would suspect would work the best is one that is not present in the game – this game offers no touchscreen support.

The presentation offers players a few options for how to display letters, but otherwise it’s fairly subdued. This is probably to be expected from a Puzzle game with a focus on numbers, but I mention it all the same. These visuals are backed by some rather loud clicking noises as you move the cursor (thankfully you can adjust this volume in the game’s menus), as well as instrumental backing music that seems to be aiming for a “mysterious” theme, but isn’t otherwise all that memorable.

Despite its numerous flaws, for $2 Ink Cipher is still a pretty good Puzzle Game. The game contains 220 puzzles, which is pretty impressive for the low cost of the game. My only hesitation at recommending this game is how extremely niche it is – even being something of a linguaphile myself, I’m a bit stunned at some of the obscure word choices used for these puzzles, and how the game doesn’t work up to these challenging words but starts with them pretty much right from the beginning. Unless you are someone with a deep fascination with the English language and you enjoy a good challenge, this game probably isn’t for you. If that does describe you, however, Ink Cipher is going to give you some very good bang for your buck.

tl;dr – Ink Cipher is a Puzzle Game that has players filling in Crossword-like Puzzles using number assignments and contextual deduction rather than by using trivia questions. This is a solid setup for a Puzzle game with a hefty 220 puzzles considering the tiny $2 price tag. However, the obscure language the game uses in its puzzles right from the start makes this only a game for the most dedicated fans of the English language.

Grade: C+

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