Grille Ciphers

Hey there, puzzle enthusiasts! Today, I’m excited to share with you a super cool way to create your very own Grille Ciphers – an awesome puzzle decoding method that’s been around since the 1500s, but is still a hot favorite among gamers and cryptologists today. Let’s dive into the world of ciphers and get crafty!

The Magic of Grille Ciphers

At its core, Grille Ciphers involve two sheets of paper (or wood). The first sheet can be anything – a letter, a book page, or just a jumble of random letters. The second sheet is where the fun begins; it’s blank but has strategic holes cut out. When you overlay this holed sheet on the first one, voilà! The holes reveal the important words or letters.

Different Flavors of Grille Ciphers

Single Letter Grille

This one’s a classic. It reveals individual letters to form a word. Imagine a sheet with an arrow and Roman numerals around the edges. Line up the arrow with each numeral to reveal different letters – like magic!

Word Reveal Grille 

Here, you get to play detective with a whole page from a book or a printed letter. The holed sheet will line up perfectly to reveal a secret sentence waiting to be discovered.

 

DIY Grille Cipher

 

 

Chris Kallal creates his own version of the Grille Cipher using 4-letter words or less. It’s printed on sturdy card stock and laminated for durability. You can even use wood if you’re feeling extra crafty!

Step 1: Creating the Key

1. Open Microsoft Word and create a 4×4 table, resizing it to 5.5″ square (don’t forget to turn on your ruler under the View tab).
2. Center align all the cells and pick Arial Black size 65 as your font.
3. Choose which boxes to cut out. For mine, I selected boxes 1, 10, 12, and 15.
4. Highlight these cells and shade them black.
5. Add a simple text box with a period in Arial Black size 36, placing it at the top edge of your table.
6. Repeat this step, adding more periods (up to 4) and placing them on different sides of the table.
7. Select the entire table, change the inside cell borders to white or no color, but keep the outer border black.
8. Save this as your “Grille Cipher Cutout”, print it, and then carefully cut out the black squares.

The above picture reads OPEN – LOCK – WITH – LUCK (it’s a 4-letter word lock that opens with the word “luck”)

 

 

Step 2: Making the Puzzle Paper

1. Delete all text boxes
2. Select all cells and change the outline color to black again (makes it easier to work with)
3. For the cells that are currently shaded black, change the shade to Red. ( I chose red because it’s first in the rainbow so I know these are the first boxes to read)
4. Then I select/highlight cells 3, 8, 11, and 13 and shade them yellow
5. Then I select/highlight cells 2, 5, 7, and 16 and shade them green
6. Then I select/highlight cells 4, 6, 9, and 14 and shade them blue
7. When I am ready to make a code, I spell out my first word in the red boxes going from left to right, top to bottom, then the second word in yellow, third in green, and last in blue
8. Hint: If you are going to have any blanks, I try to spread them out on the table so they all are not near each other too much)
9. Choose “SAVE AS” and name this “Grill Cipher Puzzle Key”
10. After saving the key, I highlight the entire table and shade it to “No color” or white. This removes all the color on it so it is harder to decipher
11. Then select the entire table and change the inside cells border color back to white or no color again but leave the outside of the entire table as black (so you know what square to cut out once printed)
12. Now you can print and cut out with an Exacto knife

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And there you have it! Your very own Grille Cipher. Happy decoding!

 

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