The Password Game: a form that fights back
Everyone has met the sign-up form that wants a number, a capital letter and a symbol. The Password Game is what happens if that form never stops asking. Rule one wants five characters. Rule five wants the digits to add to twenty-five. By rule nine the Roman numerals in your password have to multiply to thirty-five, which means the capital C in ’Contra’ — a sponsor you were told to include — is suddenly worth a hundred. Then there is the moon, the periodic table, a leap year, the hex code of a colour, the length of the password itself, and a chicken called Paul who hatches halfway through and needs feeding every thirty seconds.
This is our own version of the idea, written for passwordgame.co and hosted here: twenty rules, live checking as you type, a hint under every rule you are failing, and a final step where you re-type the whole thing from memory. It runs in any browser with no download or account, and your password never leaves the page. Most people finish in ten to twenty minutes. Some of them lose Paul on the way.
Controls & Mechanics
| Action | Control | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Keyboard, in the box | Emoji work: use your system emoji picker (Win + . or Ctrl + Cmd + Space) |
| Read the rules | Cards below the box | Failing rules float to the top with a hint; green ones sink |
| Finish | Re-type box | Appears when all twenty are green; pasting is disabled |
Getting all twenty green
- Lowercase everything you can: Only uppercase I V X L C D M count as Roman numerals. ’contra’, ’march’ and ’chile’ are safe; ’Contra’ adds a C worth 100 to the product.
- Zeros are free digits: The digit sum has to be 25, but a leap year like 2000 costs only 2 of it. Use zeros wherever a rule wants a number you cannot change.
- Feed Paul before you do anything else: Once he hatches, a caterpillar disappears every thirty seconds. Put in four or five before you go back to fixing the digit sum.
Key Features
- Twenty escalating rules: From ’five characters’ to ’the current time’, with the phase of the moon and a chicken along the way.
- Live hints: Every failing rule shows what it currently sees: the digit sum, the Roman product, the number of caterpillars.
- Hosted here, private: The whole game is one page on passwordgame.co; nothing you type is sent anywhere.
