Spell out the message one cut-out letter at a time, but every scrap costs money, and the cheap ones look terrible.
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How to play
Ransom is a budget-juggling word puzzle. The day's message is laid out as a row of empty slots, and your job is to fill every letter by buying a tile for it. Each tile comes in five qualities: quality 1 is the cheapest, ugliest scrap and quality 5 is clean and pricey. You must fill the whole message, stay under budget, and squeeze out as much legibility as you can, then send the note and see how your score stacks up against par.
Click a slot to cycle its quality: empty to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then back to empty.
The letter shop lists every letter's price at each of the five qualities, plan your spend.
Pricier tiles add legibility but eat your budget; the puzzle is finding the best mix.
Sending only works once every slot is filled and you're within budget; beat par to win.
Controls
Desktop: left-click a slot to raise its quality, right-click to clear it. Use Fill cheapest, Reset and Send note buttons.
Phone & tablet: tap a slot to cycle its quality; mouse or trackpad is recommended for the right-click clear shortcut.
Game modes
Daily: one shared message and budget for everyone that day.
Practice: generate a fresh budget puzzle whenever you want.
Tips & strategy
Spend your cleanest tiles on the rarest, most expensive letters where legibility gains matter most, and pad common letters with cheap scraps.
Use Fill cheapest as a baseline, then upgrade individual slots upward until you're about to bust the budget.
Leftover budget is wasted potential, push quality up everywhere you can without going over.
About Ransom
Ransom is an original free browser word game that turns spelling into an economics puzzle: a fixed message, a tight budget, and a tradeoff between cost and clarity on every single letter. No download or sign-up required.
A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.
