Five hidden words. Six guesses each. One rival.
How to play Cipher Storm with a friend
- Start a roundOne round contains five independent five-letter targets. They share no letters or logic with each other.
- Type a guess and press enterFill the active row with a real five-letter word and lock it in.
- Read the coloursGreen means that letter is in the word and in that exact position. Yellow means it's in the word somewhere else. Grey means it isn't in the word at all.
- Move between targetsSix guesses per target, and rows are independent — start with whichever you feel best about and come back to the others.
- Score the ones you crackEvery solved target scores. Cracking more than your opponent takes the duel.
Five targets changes the strategy completely
With a single word and six guesses, the correct play is caution: open with a letter-rich word, narrow methodically, and take the safe finish. You have exactly one puzzle, so failing it means scoring nothing.
With five, that logic inverts. Each target is worth the same, and you have six guesses on every one. Spending all six grinding out a horrible word is a bad trade when a different row might fall in three.
The winning shape is usually: open all five cheaply, see which ones respond, then commit your remaining guesses to the two or three that are cracking. Abandoning a stubborn target is a legitimate move, not a failure.
Openers: the letters that actually pay
A good opening guess maximises information, not the chance of a fluke. You want common letters in common positions, and no repeats — a repeated letter wastes one of your five slots asking a question you already asked.
Vowel coverage matters more than consonant coverage, because vowel positions constrain a five-letter word far harder. Words built from E, A, R, O, S, T, L, I, N and C do most of the work.
Against a clock, using the same opener for all five rows is genuinely efficient — you learn five things at once and your brain isn't switching modes.
Yellow is more useful than green
A green letter is settled. It tells you one position and then stops teaching you anything.
A yellow letter tells you two things: the letter is present, and it is *not* here. On a five-letter word, one yellow can eliminate more candidates than a green does — especially early, when the space is still wide.
Players who chase greens tend to lock in a comfortable-looking pattern and then run out of guesses. Players who chase yellows tend to collapse the space faster.
Three things that actually help
- Open all five rows before you commit to any of them. Cheap information across the board beats deep information on one.
- Never guess a word containing a grey letter. It feels obvious and it is still the most common way people burn a guess.
- If a row is down to two guesses and you have no yellows, leave it. That guess is worth more somewhere else.
Cipher Storm questions
Can two people race the same word puzzle without spoiling it?+
Yes. Both players get the identical set of five targets and solve their own copies, so nothing one player does reveals anything to the other. Only progress is shared, never letters.
Are the five words connected to each other?+
No. Each of the five targets is independent — they share no letters, theme or logic. Solving one tells you nothing about the other four, which is why jumping between rows is free.
How many guesses do I get?+
Six per target, and they don't transfer. Running out on one row doesn't cost you guesses on the other four.