Zol's Codebreaker Crack the code, find the phrase.

The rules

It's a substitution cipher, and the rules are simple:

• Every letter of the alphabet has been swapped for a different one — the same swap the whole way through the phrase.
• Tap a coded letter and assign the real letter you think it stands for; it fills in every place that coded letter appears at once.
• The mapping is one-to-one, so no two coded letters can share the same real letter — a clash lights up so you can fix it.
• You crack it by deduction: how often each letter appears, the shape of small words, an apostrophe that gives away a contraction, and the category shown above the puzzle ("Idiom", "Famous Quote").
• Stuck? A hint reveals one correct letter for a small scoring cost, with no limit — so you can always work your way to the end.

Choose how much help you get

Every tier hides the same kind of phrase — the difference is how cold you start:

• Easy — four letters are filled in for you, and every coded letter shows how often it appears.
• Medium — two starter letters, and no frequency counts.
• Hard — a single starter and nothing else. A clean, cold solve.
• Zolified — no starters at all, plus a 30-second metronome that reveals one correct letter whether you asked for it or not, each reveal costing more than the last.

One right letter and the whole phrase starts to fall. That's the moment you're playing for.

Three ways to play

The Daily gives everyone the same phrase, so you can compare your time and how many hints it took. Free Play is unlimited puzzles drawn from a library of hundreds of quotes, sayings and idioms. And Versus hands you and a friend the same phrase to race — higher score wins.

Play it

Play Zol's Codebreaker in your browser — nothing to download. Creating an account is free, and new players get a 30-day preview with full access to every game in the catalogue. After the preview, a rotating set of games is free to play each day.

Like puzzles built on deduction? Try Zol's Cipher, where you guess a hidden word from colour clues, Zol's Echo, the same idea with only the counts to go on, or Zol's Links, where you untangle sixteen words into four hidden groups.