Come with us now, on a journey through time and space – well, maybe just a path of letters and directions.
It’s another transposition cipher this episode, a cousin of our Rail Cipher [July 2023 edition]. This means that we are not going to change the letters themselves – just the geometric order of how we read them.
Alternative Routes
To demonstrate a few variations, let’s first take a quick message and trace it through some basic formats:
In Green we have a standard reading style across lines; in Yellow reading downwards in columns; in Red reading clockwise going inwards; and lastly in Blue reading anti-clockwise going inwards but from the bottom right. The first three don’t pose much difficulty, but with the last one we can see how even just shifting the starting point slows the reader down. Still doesn’t prevent you from getting it I hope. Let’s progress it.
Stuck In Traffic?
Our Orange squares on the left are read in a spiral again, but this time from the centre outwards. The second Orange square here puts the cipher text into normal(ish) looking words that spell out the rows.
The Purple one is going diagonally down to the right, starting from the top left. The length of some of our words here makes it a bit easy to pick out some of it (almost a crossword style). Our cipher text in this example lists out the columns.
Remember you can expand the grid for a longer message, and can always use “filler” letters to help round up a shorter message.
Directions Please!
Okay time to mix up our journey. Below we have the same message as before in Red, starting from the top left position. But this time we will follow a sequence of directions that indicate the route to follow for the message. In Grey we see the directions to be followed – literally – go right for R, then down for D, left for L. In Blue I’ve swapped out these letters for an arrow path if that’s more your style, and lastly is the set of directions but instead reading across in rows.
Taking The Scenic Route
Here is a bigger example piece with directions. (Hint: start at the ‘S’, centre of the second-lowest line) (Also: your target needs to know where to begin!)
The Next Trip
If you really want to slow your players down so they can enjoy the journey, the Route Cipher can easily be combined with other encoding options. Sure, the reader will need to follow the letters around anti-clockwise going inwards, but if you have put your message through a Caesar / Rotation Cipher or similar, it’ll be tough for an unwanted reader to crack it.
Which Way Now?
When you have found letters set out in a grid, or a strange yet deliberate shape, you can test out the basic routes we covered earlier. But if these don’t work look around in your Escape Room for clues as to how to read it. It could be that you have been given way too many directions for a directional lock sequence, or there’s a two part cipher for you to work on. Good luck!
