How to play
Deduce the hidden password from progressively revealed intelligence — using as little of it as you can.
The objective
Each puzzle hides one password. You start with three pieces of intelligence: a category, the length, and one initial clue. Enough to think — not enough to know.
- Type a full guess and submit. Guesses are case-insensitive; spacing and most punctuation are normalised for you.
- The daily game gives no letter-by-letter colour feedback — deduction comes from the clues, not a letter grid.
- If you’re stuck, reveal another clue. Each one makes the answer easier but lowers the score you can still earn.
- Solve the password to breach the system. Run out of guesses (or surrender) and the breach fails.
Scoring
Every puzzle starts at 1,000 points. You’re rewarded for spending less intelligence and solving quickly.
| Reveal a standard clue | −100 |
| Reveal a strong (partial-reveal) clue | −150 |
| Incorrect guess | −50 |
| Solve within 30 / 60 sec | +25 / +10 |
| Surrender or fail | score → 0 |
| Minimum winning score | 100 |
Ratings
What the clues do
Clues are ordered from broad to specific — a conceptual clue, then context, structure, inclusion or exclusion of letters, a starting or ending letter, and finally partial reveals near the end. Letter-position and reveal clues fill their letters straight into the password slots.
Daily attempts
The Daily Breach is one shared puzzle, the same for everyone, with one ranked attempt. It rotates at midnight UTC. Previous days can be replayed unranked from the archive. Practice mode is unlimited and unranked, with explanations after each solve.
Streaks
Completing the Daily Breach — win or lose — extends your streak. One completion counts per UTC day; missing a day resets the active streak, but your longest streak is kept permanently.
Accessibility
- Full keyboard operation with visible focus states. Press
Enterto submit a guess. - Clue reveals and guess results are announced to screen readers; the password slots carry a readable label.
- Status is never shown by colour alone — it’s always paired with a label.
- Animation respects your system “reduce motion” setting. The timer never causes automatic failure.
Data & privacy
As a guest, your streak, statistics and results are stored only in your browser’s local storage on this device — nothing is sent anywhere in this prototype. Creating an account (a future release) would sync that progress across devices. Your guesses are never stored in plain text server-side; they’re normalised and hashed for validation.
Terms
Password Breach is a word-deduction game for entertainment. All passwords are fictional, curated words — the game does not simulate real password cracking or teach credential attacks. A KillShift browser game.