On the Subject of Pandemonium Cipher
A cipher named after the plane of tunnels, where you’d be stuck walking around forever.
The module displays two panels with seven letters each, a submit panel with an extra letter on it, and a lettered grid with four buttons referring to their respective directions.
You can press a panels to cycle it. The top row shows an encrypted word and a keyword. The bottom row shows two other keywords. The extra letter on the submit panel is a keyletter.
To solve the module, decrypt the word following the steps below and submit it using the grid. To submit, press the directional buttons to move to the letter you want to submit, and press the submit button. For x use the keyletter instead. You can always cycle the top panel to clear your input.
Decrypting the word
Step 0 - Creating your key
For steps 1, 2 and 3 you need a key. To make this key, make an empty 5×5 grid. Then take your keyword from the top panel. For each letter take its alphabetic position ignoring any x in both the keyword and the alphabet (meaning the alphabet is A1Z25) and place the first unplaced letter of this alphabet on the grid at that position in reading order. If a position is already occupied, go to the next square in reading order until you arrive at an available square. Loop around in both the grid and the keyword where necessary.
Example: BELLOWS
- | A | - | - | B |
- | - | - | - | - |
- | C | D | - | E |
- | - | - | G | - |
- | - | F | - | - |
U | A | H | O | B |
I | P | V | W | Y |
Z | C | D | J | E |
K | L | Q | G | N |
R | S | F | M | T |