Curious Cabinet: Quickfire, a Timed Decoding Game

About Curious Cabinet: Quickfire

Inspector Wren works from a corner table of the Curious Cabinet café, with a cup of coffee, a brass cipher wheel and a pocket notebook full of coded notes. Every case is four pages, and every page is written in a new substitution rule: a slide along the alphabet, a fold, a key word, and at last a stranger’s key with no rule at all.

A rule card names each page’s rule and works an example; then the clock starts. Tap a red letter and stamp its true letter, or just type it. Each true letter is used once, and the brass wheel fills in as you go. The note says nothing until it reads true, or until you ask it to Check, which rubs out the wrong letters as slips.

This is Quickfire. The seconds you have left are points, and a clean page, with no slip and no hint, keeps your streak: clean pages in a row multiply, up to two and a half times. Decode a page clean and quick and Wren rubs a pencil across the next page, and its rule rises out of the paper. Run out of time and the trail goes cold: the note is written out for you and the streak starts again. Reach the case’s goal to crack it. Want no clock? Switch on Practice on the case file; it costs nothing. A case takes about five minutes, and the notebook stays on this device.

How to play

A case is four pages. Each page is a short coded note in a new rule, and its rule card shows how the rule works first.
Tap a red letter (or move with the arrow keys) and stamp its true letter, or type it. Each true letter is used once: stamping it again moves it.
Each page has its own clock. Decode the note before it runs out: the seconds left become points.
A clean page has no slip and no hint. Clean pages in a row multiply your points, up to two and a half times.
Check rubs out wrong letters (each is a slip). A hint pencils in one letter. Either ends the streak.
Practice, on the case file or in Settings, takes the clocks away. Press Escape or Start to pause: the clock stops too.

Controls

Tap a red letter, then a stamp key — pencil its true letter (or type the letter)
Arrow keys or D-pad — move along the note; Space or Ⓐ — next blank
Backspace or Ⓑ — rub out; Enter, 2 or Ⓡ — check
1 or Ⓧ — hint (ends the streak); 3 or Ⓨ — fold the rule strip
Escape or Start — pause (the clock stops)

Frequently asked questions

How is a page scored?

Each letter you decode scores, and so does every second left on the clock. A clean page, with no slip and no hint, adds a bonus and keeps the streak, which multiplies a page’s points.

What happens when the clock runs out?

The trail goes cold: the note is written out, the letters you already had right still count, and the streak starts again on the next page. The case always carries on to its end.

Is there a way to play without the clock?

Yes. Switch on Practice on the case file, or in Settings. Every page has the same rule and note, there is simply no clock and no speed bonus. It costs nothing.

Do I have to know codes already?

No. Every page’s rule card says what the rule does and works an example first. Only the last page, the stranger’s key, has no rule: five letters are pencilled in to start you off.