Cypher
Worth it · Short indie · 2018
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $4.99.
- Length
- 8.9h
- Value
- $0.56/hr
- Reviews
- 90% positive
Buy now or wait
The Autumn Sale is on until Oct 8. It is at full price today.
Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales on record.
- Autumn Sale cooldown
- None on record
- Typical seasonal cut
- 70% ($1.49)
- Last discount ended
- 94 days ago
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, Shader Model 3.0, 246 MB of storage. Windows only.
Cypher is a first person puzzle game about cryptography.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
It has never been cheaper than $1.49. That was October 2019. Its cuts run 70 percent off as a rule. There have been 66 in the 9 years tracked, about 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended about 13 weeks ago.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 1 percent on value. It is pricier than 65 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 94 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Zup! S ($1.99, scores 96) beats it on value, while it beats Antichamber ($19.99, scores 66).
None of the 376 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written April 2020 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 87 percent of the 328 reviews written there were positive, against 90 percent overall, and those are 37 percent of everything written about it.
The drop-off
44% start to 5% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
What players say
You'll be introduced to some of the best-known concepts and puzzles (ciphers) in cryptography, which I think are fairly accessible for beginners. However, since the difficulty is far from linear, you'll quickly find yourself stuck. For experts, this game is a good refresher but may lacks content. A level editor and workshop would have been a nice adding, but for a game that costs 5€ there's not much more to expect.
Pre-game completion atm | ** Completed room 1,2,3,7- some puzzles I took screenshots of and did elsewhere in my free time & haven't been added to my total hours |, but I know what I'm in for Highly recommend for anyone that loves cryptography or ones that are interested in the idea. Mono gives a bit of nostalgia and is usually the area you'll find if you're in or out imo, willing to sit with your notepad and some...
This is almost unplayable for someone who doesn't have previous knowledge in cryptography. The game will present you different cryptography methods like in a museum, with a very vague historical background on that method and close to no explanation on how to actually use those methods. I had to look for tutorials on how to solve each type of puzzle outside the game, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to solve...
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Cypher scores 78/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/746710/cypherReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 28, price as of Oct 1.
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