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The Password Game

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The Password Game
Developer(s)Neal Agarwal
Platform(s)Web
ReleaseJune 27, 2023
Genre(s)Puzzle
Mode(s)Single-player

The Password Game is a 2023 puzzle browser game developed by Neal Agarwal. Gameplay consists in creating a password that follows increasingly unusual and complicated rules. Based on Agarwal's experience with password policies, the game was developed for two months. After its release in June, The Password Game became popular online and was recognized in the media for the gameplay's absurdity and commentary on the user experience while generating a password.

Gameplay

Players must satisfy increasingly absurd series of rules in order to progress. In this screenshot, the inclusion of the moon emoji satisfies Rule 13; however, it splits the word "may", which breaks Rule 6.

The Password Game is a web-based puzzle video game.[1] The player is tasked with typing a password in an input box.[2] The game has a total of 35 numbered rules that the password must follow.[3] As the player changes the password to comply with the first rule, a second one appears, and so on.[1][4] Although the initial requirements include setting a minimum of characters or including numbers, uppercase letters or special characters,[5][6] the rules gradually become more unusual and complex.[2][7] These can involve managing the product of Roman numerals in the string;[8][7] adding the name of the country that players have to guess from random Google Street View imagery (as a reference to GeoGuessr);[7][9][10] inserting the day's Wordle answer or the emoji representing the moon phase at the moment;[8][11] typing the best move in a generated chess position using algebraic notation;[7][12] inserting the URL of a YouTube video of a randomly generated length;[7][12][3] and adjusting boldface, italics, font types and sizes.[3] Because of two of the rules, the player is required to insert an egg emoji (named Paul by the rules) and, as it hatches to a chicken emoji, to type caterpillar emojis to feed it throughout the game.[13][14] If it starves, the player overfeeds it or the Paul emoji is removed, the game ends, showing a death screen similar to Dark Souls games.[12][13]

For each additional rule, the player must follow all the previous ones to progress; therefore, some requirements can conflict with each other.[4][7] When all 35 rules are complied, the player confirms it is the final password and then has two minutes to retype the password. Unless the player concludes the task and wins, the game ends.[3]

Development and release

Neal Agarwal
@nealagarwal
 Twitter logo, a stylized blue bird

there are rules in this game that ensure I will never see the pearly gates

June 27, 2023[15]

The Password Game was developed by Neal Agarwal, who posts his games on his website, neal.fun.[1][16] Agarwal had conceptualized the idea of the game as a parody of password policies as they got "weirder".[2] According to Agarwal, "the final straw" that made him start to work on the game may have been when he was trying to create an account on a service and was told that his password was too long. "Like apparently it's possible for a password to be too secure?"[5] Development started in late April 2023 and took two months.[2] Agarwal mentioned that implementing regular expressions ("find" operations in strings) was hard, especially due to features of the game's text editor that show up as the player progresses, like making text bold or italic.[5] Some of the game's password requirements were suggested to him on Twitter. Before release, Agarwal was unsure whether winning the game was possible; he attempted it unsuccessfully multiple times.[2] The game was released on his website on June 27.[2][5]

Reception

The Password Game went viral online soon after release.[20] After one day, the tweet announcing the game was retweeted over 11 thousand times, and, according to the developer, the game received over one million visits. The tweet received multiple comments about the maximum rule numbers that people reached in the game.[2] As reported by Engadget, Twitter mentions of Agarwal were "full of people cursing him for creating" the game, though others have accomplished it to the surprise of the developer.[8]

Many critics have contrasted the standardness and simplicity of the game's initial password rules to the absurdity of the following ones.[21] The game's sixteenth rule, which consists in finding the optimal chess move in a certain position, was regarded by PCGamesN as the requirement that might make the most players give up;[12] other reviewers experienced this.[2][18][22] While TechRadar and The Indian Express deemed The Password Game to be a good way to kill time,[11][18] PC Gamer called it "the evilest will-breaking browser game to exist".[9] The game was regarded by PCGamesN as possibly "one of the most inventive experiences of the year".[12] Polygon described it as a "comedy set in a user interface" that incorporates many secrets behind its apparent simplicity.[2] Rock Paper Shotgun described the experience as a cycle of being amused at a new rule, spending time implementing it, and feeling satisfied.[1] PCWorld considered it as a reminder of the usefulness of password managers,[6] though TechRadar felt it was outdated due to tools that "take care of the task" like password generators and managers.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e O'Connor, Alice (June 28, 2023). "Bet you can't pick a password to meet this free game's increasingly silly requirements". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Carpenter, Nicole (June 28, 2023). "The Password Game is so absurdly demanding, even its creator hasn't beaten it". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 29, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d Faulkner, Jason (June 30, 2023). "The Password Game Rules List: How Many Rules Are There?". GameRevolution. Archived from the original on July 3, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d Maddison, Lewis (July 1, 2023). "I'm a password expert – this game shows the absurdity of common guidelines". TechRadar. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d Purdy, Kevin (June 28, 2023). "The Password Game will make you want to break your keyboard in the best way". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c Yee, Alaina (June 28, 2023). "This absurd password game is wonderfully unhinged". PCWorld. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Hood, Vic (June 30, 2023). "Forget Wordle, The Password Game is my new word-game obsession". Dot Esports. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  8. ^ a b c d e Bonifacic, Igor (June 28, 2023). "I consider myself a patient person, but 'The Password Game' might break me". Engadget. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  9. ^ a b c Taylor, Mollie (June 28, 2023). "This unhinged browser game about passwords is the most messed up thing I've ever played". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  10. ^ Taifalos, Nicholas (July 1, 2023). "How to complete Rule 14 in The Password Game: Tips to find the secret country". Dot Esports. Archived from the original on July 13, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
  11. ^ a b c d Gould, Elie (June 28, 2023). "The Password Game is a brilliant mess, but it lost me at moon emojis". TechRadar. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Nelson, Will (June 28, 2023). "The Password Game is the internet's new unhinged obsession". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  13. ^ a b Souza, Patrick (June 30, 2023). "How to Prevent Paul from Being Slain in The Password Game". Prima Games. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  14. ^ Taifalos, Nicholas (July 2, 2023). "The Password Game Rule 23: How to feed Paul". Dot Esports. Archived from the original on July 3, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  15. ^ Neal Agarwal [@nealagarwal] (June 27, 2023). "there are rules in this game that ensure I will never see the pearly gates" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  16. ^ Plunkett, Luke (June 29, 2023). "The Password Game Is A Perfect Recreation Of An Online Disaster". Kotaku. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  17. ^ Allen, Eric Van (June 28, 2023). "The Password Game is an unhinged uphill battle against rules". Destructoid. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  18. ^ a b c d Mukherjee, Nayanika (July 1, 2023). "'Absurd, delightful': chaotic coder makes password game that makes you want to quit with every step". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  19. ^ Ngila, Faustine (June 29, 2023). "The password game is playing on the nightmarish hellhole of internet security". Quartz. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  20. ^ [8][11][17][18][19]
  21. ^ [2][8][1][9][12][6][11][4][18]
  22. ^ Raynor, Kelsey (June 28, 2023). "This online password game is the most frustrating thing you'll do today". VG247. Archived from the original on June 30, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
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