A word is locked in the vault. Probe it with real words — every letter comes back IN or OUT. Fill the evidence board, work out the password, then crack it.
Play Password Finder — FreeFree · Ages 8+ · No account needed
Type any real word of the right length and spend a row on it. Each of its letters lights up: green if that letter is somewhere in the password, grey if it isn't. Nothing tells you where.
All 26 letters sit below the grid, each one confirmed, ruled out, or still unknown. This is the real playing surface — the probe rows are just how you fill it in.
When you think you have it, spend one of three crack attempts. Cracking is separate from probing, so a wrong answer costs an attempt but never a row.
Most word puzzles hand you position for free. Withholding it forces the two skills that actually transfer to spelling: knowing which letters a word contains, and knowing how English arranges them.
Weak spellers usually know roughly which letters a word contains and get the order wrong. Password Finder splits those two problems apart: first you establish the set, then you reason about the arrangement — practising each without the other getting in the way.
With six rows and 26 letters to test, the best probes are words that pack in untested letters. Children start reaching for unusual words on purpose, because a word that tests five new letters is worth more than one that repeats letters they already know about.
A row that comes back all grey feels like a wasted turn and is often the most valuable one — it rules out five letters at once. Learning that a negative result is information is a genuine reasoning skill, and this game teaches it in about three rounds.
Because only set membership is revealed, an anagram of the password lights up entirely green while still being wrong. Children learn quickly that having the right letters is not the same as having the right word — which is exactly the lesson a spelling test enforces.
Position is never revealed. A letter comes back IN if it appears anywhere in the password and OUT if it doesn't — nothing about where it sits or how many times it repeats. That turns the game into pure set deduction: you are narrowing down which 26 letters are in play, then working out the arrangement yourself.
Yes. The Rookie vault is free with no account, three games a day. A free account unlocks unlimited games plus the Agent and Master vaults, and earns XP and streaks toward your child's dashboard.
Rookie is a 4-letter password with 6 probe rows, drawn from words up to grade 3. Agent is 5 letters with 6 rows, up to grade 6. Master is 6 letters with 5 rows, up to grade 8. Longer passwords with fewer rows means less evidence per letter — the jump in difficulty is real.
Yes. A probe must be a real word of the right length, which is the point: children spend their rows hunting for words that test the letters they still don't know about. Choosing a probe is a vocabulary exercise in itself.
Cracking the vault is separate from probing. You get three crack attempts per game, and a wrong crack does not use up a probe row. After three wrong cracks the password is revealed along with its definition.
Roughly ages 8 and up. Younger children can play the Rookie vault, but the deduction step — reasoning about what a row of IN/OUT results rules out — suits children who are comfortable reading and holding a few facts in mind at once. For younger spellers, Picture Speller or Sound Catcher are a better fit.
Free, no account needed. Works on phone, tablet, or desktop.
Play Password Finder