Beale Cipher 4

What is a Beale Cipher?

A Beale cipher (more precisely a book cipher) uses a shared text as a codebook. Each word in the text is assigned a sequential number starting at 1. To represent a letter, the sender picks any word whose first letter matches and writes down that word's number. Because many words can start with the same letter, the same plaintext letter can produce different cipher numbers each time — making frequency analysis much harder.

Version 4: Fire Theme

🔥 Digit Pile-Up

When you click Encode, each letter's cipher number is split into individual digit particles. These digits rain down one by one, landing in a tight pile at the letter's home position while the original letter fades away. The canvas background glows deep red-black — every digit burns in the fire palette of reds, oranges, and yellows.

💥 Explosion Cloud

Once every digit for every letter has arrived, the entire canvas explodes. Every digit particle blasts outward at high speed, filling the screen with a dense, fiery number cloud. Enable Digit echoes (Environment card) for a streaking ember effect.

✨ Per-Letter Reveal

Press Assemble (or Space). Each digit steers back toward its assigned home position within its letter's pile. Once all digits for a given letter have returned, the original letter materialises with a bright scale-pop burst. Letters reveal in a cascade until the full word reappears.

How to Encode

1. Type your message in the Encode tab (A–Z, 30 chars max).
2. Click Encode. Watch the digit rain and the pile-up on the canvas.
3. After the explosion, copy the cipher numbers and share them along with the key text.

How to Decode

1. Paste cipher numbers into the Decode tab (space- or comma-separated).
2. Click Decode. Digit particles scatter across the canvas.
3. Press Assemble and watch each letter materialise, one at a time.

Key-Text Used

"We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel — the lyrics pack in dozens of historical names and events, giving a rich and varied vocabulary for every letter of the alphabet. Never read the lyrics closely? Read them here — and explore the Key-Text Index to see exactly which word numbers map to each letter.