Cipher (Mind Loft)

About Cipher (Mind Loft)

Cipher serves one alphametic a day: an addition written in letters, where each letter stands for a different digit. Work out the digits so the arithmetic holds. Each equation is machine-checked to have exactly one solution, so careful column reasoning always gets there without guessing.

The board does the bookkeeping that would otherwise need paper. The digit pad dims a digit as soon as another letter uses it and shows which letter has it; the carry row above the equation fills itself in as far as your digits allow; and each column shows a tick or a cross the moment it is decided, so a wrong digit shows up where it happened. There is no submit button: the puzzle locks as soon as your assignment is right.

A solve scores a perfect 10, so the leaderboard is a race on the clock; revealing the answer ends the day at 0. The difficulty ramps through the week, with two addends Monday to Wednesday, three Thursday to Saturday and four on Sunday. A new equation arrives every day at midnight Eastern.

How to play Cipher (Mind Loft)

1. Open Cipher and press Start to reveal the day's equation.
2. Tap a letter and choose a digit for it from the pad; each digit can be used by only one letter.
3. Watch the carry row and the tick or cross under each column.
4. When every column shows a tick with all letters assigned, the puzzle locks and you are done.

Tips

• Start with the leftmost letter of the answer: when the answer is longer than the addends, it is usually forced to be 1 by the carry.
• Columns where a letter is added to itself and gives itself mean the other digit is 0 or 9 with a carry.
• Use the dimmed digits on the pad to narrow choices instead of trying values blind.

Questions