I Started Playing the Password Game... Six Hours ago

**The Password Game gives ‘knowledge based authentication‘ a whole new meaning…**

We’ve written about cybersecurity-themed games before — IBM’s Terminal, Microsoft Security Adventure, the Financial Times Ransomware Attack Simulator, and Trend Micro’s Targeted Attack — but Neal Agarwal’s Password Game is something else altogether, perhaps if only for it’s deceptive simplicity.

Please choose a password. This is the game’s basic instruction. Easy enough.

As you begin to type, however, rules are introduced. These start of as basic length and complexity requirements that anyone who has ever created an online account might be familiar with — capital letters, symbols, numbers — but quickly evolve into something stranger: “Your password must include the current phase of the moon as an emoji.“ Under the continuous guise of simply creating a password, the game — which takes place entirely within the confines of the provided password prompt — manages to test players’ knowledge of the periodic table, roman numerals, mathematics, algebraic notation, chess strategy, and more, giving the phrase ‘knowledge-based authentication a whole new meaning.

With each satisfied rule, I found myself both disappointed to find that a new one had taken it’s place, and simultaneously eager to solve it and discover what new, absurd research assignment would spring forth from Neal’s mind. With his new game, Agarwal has managed to poke interactive fun at the often cumbersome security requirements that plague us all — the seemingly minor, yet daily bane of our digital existence: passwords.

The Password Game is an enjoyable way to burn a few minutes… or in my case, a few hours. While I’m not sure if there is a way to beat the game, I’ve become intimately familiar with the many ways to lose — yet, I remain steadfast in my commitment to saving Paul.

Who’s Paul? Play the Password Game and find out.