If you are wondering exactly how long to beat What's the Password game, expect to spend between 1.5 to 2 hours to clear the main campaign. Released in May 2026 by TrampolineTales—the solo indie developer famous for the breakout hit Luck be a Landlord—this minimalist puzzle title strips away the bloat of modern gaming to deliver a pure, code-cracking experience.
Instead of padding the runtime with endless traversal or repetitive combat, the game presents you with a series of abstract visual prompts and a single goal: deduce the 4-digit code. But while the premise is incredibly simple, the logic required to reach the end credits is anything but. Below, we break down exactly what to expect from your playtime, how the game's unique mechanics influence the pacing, and what it takes to achieve 100% completion.
The Short Answer: How Long to Beat What's the Password Game?
For the average player, reaching the end credits requires roughly 90 to 120 minutes of focused playtime. The game is priced at $7.99 on Steam and $4.99 on mobile platforms (iOS and Android), offering a tight price-to-playtime ratio that respects your schedule.
As Robin Ward, co-designer of The Roottrees are Dead, noted in an early review, the experience is built with "no fluff or padding." You are presented with a screen, a visual prompt, and a 4-digit combination lock. There are exactly 108 puzzles in the base game. If you divide a 120-minute playtime by 108 puzzles, you are looking at an average of just over one minute per puzzle.
However, averages can be deceiving in the puzzle genre. In the beginning, you might breeze through one puzzle every thirty seconds. Early stages ask you to simply count shapes—identifying the number of triangles, squares, hexagons, and octagons hidden in a geometric pattern. But as you progress, the difficulty curve ramps up sharply, and a single puzzle can easily stall your momentum for ten minutes or more.
Pacing the 108 Puzzles: What Slows You Down?
The core campaign of What's the Password? relies heavily on lateral thinking, which is the primary factor that will stretch your playtime. You will encounter math word problems, such as calculating the exact total of a fictional takeaway food order based on a scattered menu. Other screens require deep spatial reasoning, forcing you to read abstract bar charts, draw numbers out of star constellations, or mentally invert and flip on-screen designs to reveal the negative space.
The minimalist 1-bit black and white graphics are designed to be easy on the eyes, accompanied by a noir-inspired jazz club soundtrack that keeps the atmosphere relaxed even when the logic gets frustrating. But the minimalist aesthetic is also a weapon; with so little visual information on the screen, players often overthink the solutions, adding unnecessary minutes to their run.
Cracking the Fourth Wall: The Puzzles That Pad Your Playtime
Where What's the Password? truly tests your patience—and extends your playtime—is in its meta-puzzles. The game frequently breaks the fourth wall, demanding that you look outside the immediate screen to find the 4-digit code.
For example, one notorious puzzle requires you to open the game's actual options menu and add together your music, volume, and total volume settings to generate the answer. Another tracks your background data, asking you to input the exact number of times you have clicked your mouse during the entire game up to that point.
If you lack real-world trivia, you might also hit a wall. Certain codes rely on outside knowledge, such as identifying months with a specific number of days, recalling memorable historical dates, or knowing the exact planetary order of our solar system. When you get stuck on these esoteric challenges, the game offers optional hints. If you remain hopelessly lost, a skip button eventually appears. However, the length of time it takes for this skip button to spawn varies wildly, adding unpredictable, unskippable minutes to your total run.
How Long to Beat What's the Password Game for 100% Completionists?
If you are a trophy hunter wondering how long to beat What's the Password game for full completion, expect to spend closer to 2.5 hours. The Steam version features exactly 120 achievements, which is a surprisingly high number for a two-hour indie title.
The vast majority of these are unmissable progression markers. You will earn an achievement for every single stage you clear, from "Solved puzzle #001" all the way through "Solved puzzle #108". Roughly 90% of the achievements are tied directly to these base puzzles. The remaining 10% are meta achievements related to interacting with the UI, using hints, or solving the fourth-wall challenges flawlessly. Because the campaign is so streamlined, achieving 100% completion is less about grinding and more about raw puzzle comprehension. There is no New Game Plus mode to grind through; once you understand the logic, the achievements unlock naturally.
Does RNG Affect How Long to Beat What's the Password Game?
One of the most devious mechanics TrampolineTales implemented to protect the game's playtime is randomized solutions. You cannot simply pull up a YouTube walkthrough or a Reddit thread to copy the 4-digit codes. The logic required to solve the puzzle remains the same, but the actual numbers are procedurally generated for each individual player.
This RNG factor guarantees that your playtime is entirely dependent on your own cognitive speed. You cannot brute-force your way through the game using a guide. A walkthrough can tell you to "count the triangles," but it cannot tell you how many triangles are on your specific screen.
Furthermore, some players have reported minor technical hiccups—specifically, continuous frame rate slowdowns that occur every few minutes on certain PC builds, as noted in a review by Higher Plain Games. While the developer is actively patching the software, these minor optimization issues can artificially inflate the time it takes to input codes or navigate the menus, adding a few extra minutes to your final clock.
The Developer Pedigree: From Luck be a Landlord to Minimalist Puzzles
Understanding the developer's history helps explain why What's the Password? is paced the way it is. TrampolineTales previously created Luck be a Landlord, a highly successful roguelike deckbuilder that thrived on deep, systemic interactions over flashy graphics.
That same design philosophy is present here. The developer prioritizes mechanical density over visual spectacle. By stripping away the graphics and focusing purely on the "aha!" moment of code-breaking, the 1.5 to 2 hours you spend with the game feel incredibly dense. There is no walking from point A to point B; there is only the puzzle, the password, and your brain.
FAQ: How Long to Beat What's the Password Game?
How many puzzles are in the main campaign? There are exactly 108 distinct puzzles in the base game, ranging from simple visual counting tasks to complex fourth-wall breaks.
Are the mobile and PC versions the same length? Yes. Whether you pay $7.99 on Steam or $4.99 on iOS/Android, the content is identical. Both versions will take the average player about 1.5 to 2 hours to complete.
Can I use a walkthrough to beat the game faster? No. Because the game features randomized solutions for extra replayability, a walkthrough can only explain the logic of a puzzle. It cannot give you the exact 4-digit code, meaning your playtime is still tied to your ability to execute the logic.
Are there missable achievements? Out of the 120 Steam achievements, most are tied to mandatory puzzle completion (e.g., clearing puzzles #001 through #108). However, a few meta-achievements may require you to replay specific stages if you use the skip button too frequently.
Ultimately, What's the Password? proves that a game doesn't need a bloated 40-hour open world to be memorable. By condensing brilliant "aha!" moments into a tight 2-hour window, TrampolineTales has crafted a puzzle experience that respects your time while thoroughly testing your wits.
Sources
- Steam Store Page: What's the Password?
- Higher Plain Games: What's the Password? Review
- Thinky Games: What's the Password? Overview
- TrampolineTales Developer Updates