# Cryptogram Tale — user reviews > 138 indexed App Store user reviews of Cryptogram Tale by GammaLateral LLC, rated 4.60/5 from 1,588 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cryptogram-tale/id966436749/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cryptogram-tale/id966436749.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 1,246 · 4★ 227 · 3★ 51 · 2★ 21 · 1★ 43 ## What do users think of Cryptogram Tale? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Hundreds of cryptograms - 📚 Interesting stories and literature - 👍 No ads unless you want a hint - 💡 Hints available by watching ads - 🔒 No glitches or annoying ads - 👍 Smooth gameplay - 💡 Customizable font and background - 👍 Saves progress automatically - 👍 Relaxing and brain-stimulating **Cons** - 🐛 Crashes and freezes - 🔍 Difficulty level not always clear - 🔍 Capitalized words revealed after first letter - 🔍 Some stories not well-suited for cryptograms - 🔍 Ads can't always be closed - 🔍 Too many ads, especially after completing a puzzle **Commonly reported bugs** - Progress getting deleted - Ads not loading properly - Keyboard not opening automatically **Most requested features** - More modern and diverse stories - Ability to choose story titles - Cursor that skips to next blank space - Undo button - Trigger warnings for dark/disturbing content - More classical music options ## Newest reviews (15 of 138) ### 4/5 — So fun! *2026-08-15, version 15* Challenging, brain-building, and satisfying. ### 3/5 — Addictive *2024-08-27, version 9.18* I love cryptograms, so to do entire stories is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, lots of the “classic” stories are becoming more disturbing/offensive as I move from one to the next, and I feel that I’m usually pretty gracious with others’ taste. I do believe that good literature should make people think, but after so many of these stories, I’m really starting to wonder who selects them. There are so many stories, which is super cool, but I’m starting to lose interest due to the selection. I wish there was more variety. ### 3/5 — Ads don’t work *2024-06-09, version 9.18* This game falls into the cash trap of “we can’t load ads even if you have great internet”. This happens some times in other mobile games too. ### 4/5 — Favorite Game but Those Crashes!! *2024-04-20, version 9.18* Only game I play that first freezes, then crashes my iPhone 15 Pro, impervious to repeated manual attempts to reboot. The whole freeze, lock, crash, restart process takes 10-15 minutes to complete, and happens at minimum twice a day. Bad enough that it’s so annoying, but killing my time and my phone is wearing me out. To reiterate, I have had no other game in the years I’ve used mobile apps, cause this issue. Please address, help, fix so I can go back to the 5 Star Joy this game has given me. ### 5/5 — Reading and solving together! *2024-03-09, version 9.18* It’s like reading and solving a puzzle at the same time! The stories are enjoyable to read, the gameplay is fun, the interface is user-friendly. My new favorite game! ### 5/5 — Some vocabularies are not familiar to me *2024-03-07, version 9.17* It would be better to allow dictionary integration ### 5/5 — Time consuming *2024-03-01, version 9.16* Love it relaxing works your brain ### 5/5 — Great game! *2024-02-28, version 9.16* This game is amazing! You can reveal tantalizing stories that are interesting and impactful, while at the same time training your brain. I love this app! ### 5/5 — Can’t get game to load past GammaLateral start screen *2023-12-03, version 9.16* I can’t get the game to load it quits on the GammLateral screen before the game loads then it kicks me out of the app please fix I’ve uninstalled reinstalled like 12 times please fix this thank you ### 5/5 — Cryptogram *2023-11-25, version 9.16* This is one of the best cryptogram ideas I have ever in 82 years of solving this kind of puzzles. ### 3/5 — Has some issues *2023-10-28, version 9.13* It’s a cool idea and worth checking out, but it’s not as well made as I’d like. The keyboard should open when you select a letter. The default font is poorly rendered – I suggest switching fonts if that bothers you. There is no “undo” button, which would be very useful. The fact that capitalized words are revealed, but only after you enter the first letter, is a bit weird. Worst though – the stories aren’t consistently well-suited to be cryptograms. I’ve run into several problems already playing the first story on the hardest mode: There was a name with a middle initial that didn’t appear elsewhere in the segment, so there’s no way to figure that out other than guessing letters one by one. Long conversations make the segments too easy because of the repeated phrases like “said the orderly.” The story has a long list of made-up slang terms, which made several segments near impossible, because they had no common words and few real words. ### 4/5 — Great Way to learn As You Solve *2023-10-21, version 9.13* I really enjoy this. The level of difficulty is not to bad. The only thing that I would maybe consider is that the space between the letters gets confusing. This may be part of the puzzle though. If that’s the case then it makes sense why it can be confusing at first. I really enjoy the story and how it keeps going as you finish each puzzle. I love science and space. I don’t want to give away spoilers. The story is very good and is based on non fiction. It’s not some stupid 3 in a row junk. That’s all any of the other puzzles or games have lost value. Even for the younger kids this is a great way to learn how to solve , read, write, and figure out how sentences are written or the correct way to use English, punctuation, spelling. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to do any of the above things I mentioned for any of the reasons. Also a great way to brush up on some basic and strategic thinking. ### 5/5 — My favorite game *2023-09-23, version 9.13* I love solving cryptograms and this is a great way for me to wind down at the end of the day. I have completed almost all of them though, so please update with some new tales! ### 2/5 — Started out great… *2023-08-10, version 9.13* The app started out great. It was a fun way to pass the time. The tales are interesting. They aren’t impossibly hard to solve. Earning hints was easy (just watch an ad or two). But the last couple of days I’ve not been able to earn any hints because of the placement of the close button on the ads. I play on my phone and the close button is in the upper right hand corner. It’s happened quite a few times before. I would simply close the app, reopen it, and watch a different video. But like I said, for the last couple of days, the only videos I get are ones with the close button where I can’t click it. It’s been at least a year since the last update, so I’m not hopeful about getting another one soon enough to solve this issue. I’d rate this higher if I could properly utilize all of the features ### 5/5 — Great app *2023-06-08, version 9.13* It is great that each cryptogram gives you part of a whole story. Love this app! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Racist content *2026-06-03, version 14* This game has stories containing incredibly racist content. Please be aware of that before downloading. ### 1/5 — broken *2026-03-16, version 13* sadly this game seem very fun, but there is no “story” at the top. i can not play because there is no hints of what even the topic is ### 1/5 — WAY too difficult *2025-01-25, version 9.18* Even on “normal” level, you need NUMEROUS hints to complete each puzzle. It’s not even remotely enjoyable. ### 1/5 — Ads do not honor sound settings *2024-12-14, version 9.18* I would have considered giving this game 5 stars except that the ads do not honor sound settings. When I don’t want sound, I don’t want sound. ### 1/5 — My game is frozen. *2024-03-13, version 9.18* This is my favorite game. But it is frozen and I’m in th middle of war of the worlds. ### 1/5 — Nowhere to start *2022-11-13, version 9.13* Why is there no free letter to start you out? You’re just throwing a guess out and hoping its right how dumb is that? The newspaper gives you a free letter why don’t you ### 1/5 — Super long and frequent ads *2022-10-01, version 9.13* Great game but it’s constantly running super long ads. Some of the ads are over 30 seconds long and they appear after every passage is solved and when asking for hints. It seems when you watch an ad for a hint, those ads are annoyingly long. Going to finish the story I’m working on and then deleting this app, the ads just make it unbearable. Also, this app tracks your location (I don’t remember agreeing to it but that’s on me) as it runs super long ads targeted to your area. ### 1/5 — Confused *2022-05-24, version 9.13* When I play I can’t finish the tape without using up all my hints, and I have no idea what the tale is supposed to be. Classic Tale 1? Not a tale I’m familiar with ### 1/5 — Morbid storyline first puzzle *2022-05-12, version 9.13* The very first story is draws you in with resolving life’s hardships and then it turns to murder and suicide. There is no good ending besides more of the same. Deleted. ### 1/5 — Trigger warnings? *2021-10-18, version 9.12* The puzzles are fine, but it really needs trigger warnings. The first puzzle I got was a really dark Kurt Vonnegut story that ends with a bunch of murder suicides. There was no warning or summary or anything before starting the puzzle. They don’t even tell you the name of the story so you can look it up yourself. This could really mess with someone’s head and hurt someone. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Would give it TEN stars if I could *2026-01-22, version 13* It's a great game, and I have happily paid to get rid of the ads. Other than a very occasional typo, I'm finding the stories a real treat and am practically addicted to this app. So much fun, so easy to use. It's an A+ super-terrific wonderful wonderful game. And they keep adding more stories! Love love love it. ### 5/5 — Incredible Bang for Your Buck *2025-12-22, version 13* Best cryptogram app ever! Literally hundreds of cryptograms, from short stories to full novels, poetry, etc. And no ads unless you want a hint. Hints can also be purchased 10/ $.99. ### 5/5 — Thanks! *2025-03-24, version 10* I just love this game! My favorites are the long tales. Delighted to see more added recently, and the iCloud sync is an awesome surprise. Please keep the stories coming. ### 5/5 — The Best *2025-03-22, version 10* This is the best cryptogram puzzle out there! Long tales, short tales, poems and more. A fun way to renew your acquaintance with old favorites or to read a classic you might have missed. No glitches, no annoying ads, just smooth playing. My favorite pastime! ### 5/5 — Love this game *2025-02-05, version 9.18* Updates with more stories, easy to use and play ### 5/5 — The best cryptogram *2025-01-18, version 9.18* I have always enjoyed word games, including cryptograms. Other cryptogram apps I’ve tried give you quotes, which lose their interest value after a while. But this app provides stories which you can read as you’re going along, and this makes it much more entertaining. In addition, you don’t get bombarded by ads, which is great. It’s a simple, no frills game, which I think is also great. Just the game and that’s that. No fancy events, prizes, things to spend money on. Just the game. Perfect. ### 5/5 — Painstaking Story Reading *2024-10-13, version 9.18* I love this app. Solving cryptograms while reading classic literature. It forces me to pay attention to how the masters honed their craft. Excellent entertainment across multiple genres! ### 5/5 — Awesome game *2024-05-29, version 9.18* It's a great way to wind down at night or to pass a little bit of time. I love that theres an ongoing story with it. It really sets it apart from other games like it ### 5/5 — Great game idea! *2024-05-09, version 9.18* Difficult, but interesting 🤓 ### 5/5 — Many hours of entertainment *2024-03-17, version 9.18* I am not that into cryptograms, but gradually revealing a story as you decode is really entertaining. My spouse and I spent all evening on the first dystopian story, deciding to buy the full version after 15 minutes, and it boggles my mind how much content is included with this. This is right up there with GeoGuessr for repeat entertainment value. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-23.*