Subsections of Hidden Messages
Highlight Letters
Hide a message in a note by highlighting letters that spell out a secret
code. The basic contents of the note itself just give some information
about the plot. But some of the letters in the note are clearly
highlighted and spell out a secret message or code.
Consider the following ominous note that players find.
Greetings adventurers!
Welcome to fantasy atoll. Make yourselves at home.
Don’t panic. Perchance some of you will survive.
Note the bold highlighting of some of the letters. If we write these out, we
get “ten four nine”. This could be the combination for one of the locks in
the room: 1049.
The highlighting can be anything that distinguishes letters from others. In
this example the letters for the code are darker than those around them.
Other cues, such as color or background could be used. What is important is
that the highlighted letters are easily distinguished from the other
letters.
Because the highlighting is meant to be clear, this type of puzzle is
usually easy to solve. This is a good introductory puzzle for novice
players. See the other forms of hidden messages for more subtle ways of
hiding codes.
Capital Letters
Instead of highlighting letters
using a change in font, another way to hide a message in a note is to use
capitol letters.
The note is fairly normal, but the capitol letters do not follow correct
grammar rules. Instead, the entire message is in lowercase except capitol
letters that spell out the secret message.
i have been happily married to my huSband for many yEars now. yet, i haVe
the biggEst secret a persoN can have. thuS i fear every day someone wIll
eXtricaTe thE truth.
now the lifE of my family is in daNger. i musT now do sometHing dRastic.
tomorrow it will all be ovEr, one way or anothEr.
Collecting the capitol letters, you get S E V E N S I X T E E N T H R E E.
Splitting the words, the code is seven sixteen three (7163).
Numbers for Letters
A numeric code is easy to hide in a message by replacing some of the
letters in the message with numbers. Several letters look similar to one of
the numeric digits, so they can be subtly replaced.
Captain’s Log
The starship Faustus r3ached the outskirts of Alpha Centauri only to make a
trou8ling discovery. We have encountered life fØrms free floating in space
r4ther than bound to a planet. The organi5m we dubbed “death worm” has
already terminated over a quarter of the crew.
In the above message there are 5 numbers, which list out the code 38045.
Hiding a code like this is easy, especially when using all caps in the
message. The following table, adapted from leet, provides some suggested
substitutions.
| Number | Letters it can replace |
|---|
| Ø | O, Q |
| 1 | I, L |
| 2 | Z |
| 3 | E |
| 4 | A |
| 5 | S |
| 6 | G |
| 7 | J, T |
| 8 | B, X |
When substituting a number digit for a letter, it is important to be able
to distinguish the two. Otherwise, it will be impossible for the players to
solve the puzzle. You may need to add distinguishing features. For example,
a zero is indistinguishable from an “O”, so you will need to add a slash to
the zero (i.e. Ø).
This puzzle tends to be easy to solve. A variation to make this more
challenging for experienced players is to spell out one of the digits
instead of using this substitution. Here is a message I once used.
The fire has been called Øff, my friend. No one is coming to h3lp you. You
might as well come out and join the others. I promise I won’t hur7 you.
The players quickly found the code 037. But that did not fit any of the
locks. The difficult part of the puzzle is to recognize that the word “one”
is part of the message. Inserting a “one” into the digits, you get the
proper code 0137.
Number Words
A numeric code can be hidden in a message by writing a message that has
numbers as part of it. Here is an example.
Good job! You have reestablished my connection to our communication and
research notes. Since General Halftrack isolated me 3 days ago, I have
been desperate for help.
I need you to find the formula to the virus treatment that I developed
merely 2 days before I left for this emergency trip.
These 16 weeks on the road have been exhausting, and I’m so glad to be
able to talk to you again.
On reading this note carefully, you will notice that there are three
numbers that are part of it, taking the place of words: 3, 2, and 16.
Concatenating these numbers together we get the code 3216.
In the previous message, the numbers are highlighted by representing them
numerically. For an extra challenge, write out the numbers as words.
Good job! You have reestablished my connection to our communication and
research notes. Since General Halftrack isolated me three days ago, I have
been desperate for help.
I need you to find the formula to the virus treatment that I developed
merely two days before I left for this emergency trip.
These sixteen weeks on the road have been exhausting, and I’m so glad to be
able to talk to you again.
Rotated Letters
Spell out a secret word by rotating or flipping letters. Most of the
letters will be normal, but some will be placed in a weird orientation.
In the message above, an observant reader needs to see that there are 5
letters upside down. They spell out “cream”, which could be a secret
password.
Using rotated or mirrored letters can be tricky. You need to make sure to
use letters with enough asymmetry to be able to tell the transformed
letters from normal ones. Letters like “o”, “x”, and “l” will be difficult
to see.
Because letter options are often limited, another way to use
rotated/flipped letters is simply change one letter of words to include in
the secret.
In this message, there are upside-down letters in the words thirteen, one,
and two, revealing the code 1312.
One way to create rotated letters is to use special characters of flipped
letters, which can be copied from special Unicode characters. But a more
versatile way to do it is to rotate or flip images of characters in an
image editor.
Misspellings
Hopefully, as you create notes and other material for your escape room, you
are doing some proofreading to ensure that the language is correct. But,
sometimes you can intentionally introduce mistakes to highlight words that
add up to a secret message. One simple such mistake is a misspelling of a
word.
As I awoke, there appeared before me a body of pure light. “Loook upon me,”
it said, “and hear my words.”
“What do you want?” I stammered
“You have been selected for a quest,” it said. “You must travel over the
highest mountains and undr the thickest forest canopies. Go to the temple
of peace and find the chairrs of the five kingdoms.”
Look closely at this note and you will see that there are exactly 3
misspelled words: loook undr chairrs (look under chairs), which gives a
clue on where to find an important item.
Make sure that your misspellings are egregious (that is, easy to spot) but
also unmistakable for the word they are supposed to represent. Players need
to be able to pick out the words but still be able to understand them. Keep
in mind the reading level of players. Young children or
English-as-a-second-language players are likely to have more trouble with a
puzzle like this.
Code-Word Lookup
For the code-word lookup puzzle, players need to put together two clues.
The first clue is the message itself. But the message alone does not have
any real meaning. To get the meaning, the players need to put the message
together with a second clue containing a list of code words and their
meaning (which may just be a digit for a numeric password).
Here is an example I have used. The players find an old diary with the
following entry.
Dear Diary,
Today was the best Day of my life. I met the man of my dreams: Todd. We met
at the park. He was walking his ferret. I was hiding in the bushes. He is
sooooo cute with his pouting Lips and big brown Eyebrows. I didn’t have the
courage to talk, but I did find out where he lives. Tomorrow, we’ll “meet”
again. I’ll bring Mr. Knife for luck.
This message alone does not provide anything of value. However, in another
box the players find this page from a scientific psychology paper.
Most of the text of this “paper” is nonsense. The important part is the
enumerated lists provided. To solve the puzzle, the players have to match
words in the diary message to the listed words in the paper and use the
associated numbers to build the passcode. (The message inappropriately
capitalizes these words to help players make this connection and pick out
the appropriate words.) The words to pick out are “Day”, “Lips”,
“Eyebrows”, and “Knife”, which correspond to the digits 4, 4, 8, and 2,
respectively. Thus, the passcode is 4482.
A variant of this method is the crossword lookup where instead of
providing the code-word lookup in a list, it is hidden in a crossword
puzzle.
