A Message from the Stars
Cipher generator
The rulebook has the Alien fill the cipher card by card from a shuffled deck, and that draw skews the odds: tough letters pile into Trust. This tool gives each of the 1,888,920 valid ciphers the same chance.
Trust
Trust 1 — empty
Trust 2 — empty
Trust 3 — empty
Amplify
Amplify 1 — empty
Amplify 2 — empty
Suspicion
Suspicion 1 — empty
The cipher is for the Alien's eyes only. Draw it before the Scientists can see the screen, or hide it while they're around.
The math behind the draw
- The rulebook's deck draw is biased: filling slots left to right puts a tough (red) letter in Trust about 60% of the time, versus the 40% of valid ciphers that have one there.
- This tool picks where the tough letter goes with exact odds, then deals the remaining letters at random.
- Trust holds one common (green) letter and two uncommon (black) or tough (red) letters. Each adds +1 to words that use it.
- Amplify pairs one common letter with one uncommon or tough letter. Each doubles the score of words that use it.
- Suspicion is a single letter of any color. Words that use it score negative.
- No cipher carries more than one tough (red) letter.