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PUZZLE
Admin Review: A Password-Cracking Puzzle That's Over Before Your Coffee Gets Cold
I've played detective in hundreds of games, but this is the first time I've been forced to roleplay as the poor IT guy who has to reset Karen from Accounting's password because she used her cat's name again. Spoiler: it's not as thrilling as it sounds.
Paul
February 4, 2026
4.5
Overall Score
"Admin is a competent proof-of-concept that needed another month of development to become an actual game."
First Day on the Job (Or: Why I Should've Read the Employment Contract)
So here I am, playing an IT support technician on my first day, and apparently everyone in this office simultaneously forgot their passwords after New Year's. Sure. Because that's how human memory works. Look, I've been gaming since the days when 'password' systems meant writing codes on actual paper, and I've solved my share of detective puzzles in everything from Return of the Obra Dinn to Her Story. This? This is what happens when someone takes that detective deduction concept and strips it down to its absolute bare bones. You're staring at login screens. That's it. That's the game. Click a question mark, get a hint every sixty seconds, guess the password, move on. I appreciate the attempt at a fresh angle—password puzzles aren't exactly flooding the market—but after two minutes I realized I was essentially playing a very slow version of Wordle with corporate flavor text. The premise had potential, but the execution feels like someone had a decent idea at 2 AM during a game jam and ran out of steam by 4 AM.
The Gameplay Loop (If You Can Call Waiting a 'Loop')
Here's how Admin works: you look at a computer screen, click the hint button, wait sixty real-world seconds for another hint, read the hint, make a guess, and either succeed or wait another minute. Riveting stuff. I've had more engaging experiences waiting for my actual computer to boot up. The puzzles themselves are fine—standard logic deduction where you piece together clues about employees' personal lives to figure out their passwords. Of course everyone uses terrible password security, because this is a puzzle game and realism takes a backseat to playability. The problem is the waiting. I get that the one-minute timer is meant to pace the difficulty and prevent brute-forcing, but in practice it just means I'm sitting here checking Twitter between hints. Back in my day, Professor Layton would at least let me fail puzzles immediately so I could move on with my life. The actual deduction is serviceable once you have enough clues, but it's buried under forced downtime that kills any momentum the game might've built.
Presentation: Peak Utilitarian Chic
Let me be clear: this looks exactly like what it is—a game jam project made in a weekend. You're staring at computer login screens with basic text fields and buttons. There's no music. There's no sound effects. There's barely any visual polish beyond 'I know how to make a div in HTML.' And you know what? For a free browser game made in 48 hours, I can't completely destroy it for that. But let's not pretend this is some artistic minimalism. This is 'I spent all my time on the puzzle logic and had fifteen minutes left for presentation.' I've seen asset flips with more personality. The text is readable, the interface works, and nothing actively hurts to look at, which is honestly more than I can say for some indie games I've reviewed. But compare this to something like Hypnospace Outlaw, which nailed the computer interface aesthetic with actual style and personality, and Admin feels like a functional prototype rather than a finished experience. It does what it needs to do and not one pixel more.
The Detective Fantasy That Wasn't
Here's what bugs me most: the game bills itself as playing detective, but real detective work involves gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, connecting disparate clues. This is just... reading hints and making educated guesses. There's no investigation, no exploration, no sense that I'm actually piecing together a mystery. I'm a passive recipient of information drip-fed on a timer. Games like Return of the Obra Dinn or even something like Ace Attorney make you feel like you're actually solving something through observation and deduction. Admin makes me feel like I'm playing a slightly interactive waiting game. The password premise could've been brilliant with more depth—imagine actually searching through office emails, examining desk photos, overhearing conversations, building profiles of each employee. Instead, I click a button and wait. The hints are well-written enough, and the passwords do logically follow from the clues, so the core puzzle design isn't broken. But the wrapper around those puzzles is so thin it might as well not exist.
What It Gets Right (Reluctantly)
Fine. FINE. I'll admit it: the core password deduction puzzles are actually decent. When you finally have enough hints to piece together someone's password, there's a mild satisfaction in getting it right. The clues are logical, the passwords follow believable patterns, and I never felt like the game was being unfair or random. For a first game jam project, the developer clearly understood how to construct a solvable puzzle with appropriate difficulty scaling. And it's mercifully short—you can finish the entire thing in fifteen to twenty minutes, which means it doesn't overstay its welcome. I've suffered through six-hour indie slogs that should've been thirty minutes, so I respect a game that knows when to end. The writing in the hints has occasional personality, with little details about office dynamics that suggest the developer actually thought about these characters beyond 'Puzzle Obstacle #3.' It's not enough to save the game from feeling barebones, but it's more effort than strictly necessary for a jam game, and I'll acknowledge that.
Rating Breakdown
Quality
5
It works without crashing, which I suppose is more than I can say for half the jam games I've suffered through, but the presentation screams 'I had 48 hours and spent 47 of them coding.'
Innovation
6
Password puzzles as the entire game loop is mildly clever, and I haven't seen this exact gimmick since... actually, never, but that's not always a compliment.
Value
4
It's free, which is the only reason this score isn't lower—you'll finish it in fifteen minutes and never think about it again.
Gameplay
5
Clicking a question mark and waiting a minute for hints isn't exactly riveting gameplay, and I spent more time staring at my phone than actually playing.
Audio/Visual
4
The visual design is 'functional spreadsheet software' meets 'I just discovered default fonts,' and there's no audio to speak of, which is probably a mercy.
Replayability
3
Once you know the passwords, what's the point? It's like rewatching The Sixth Sense—the surprise is the only thing it had going for it.
What Didn't Annoy Me
The password puzzle concept is genuinely novel, even if undercooked
Core deduction logic is sound—when you solve a password, it feels earned
Mercifully short runtime means you're not trapped in mediocrity for hours
Hints are well-written with actual personality and logical progression
It's free, functional, and doesn't crash, which is apparently an achievement in 2021
For a game jam project, it shows decent puzzle design fundamentals
What Made Me Sigh
The one-minute hint timer turns gameplay into forced waiting simulator
Zero visual or audio polish—looks like a debug menu, sounds like silence
Detective premise is misleading—you're just reading hints, not investigating anything
Absolutely no replayability once you know the answers
Finishes before it develops any real depth or complexity
Final Verdict
Admin is a competent proof-of-concept that needed another month of development to become an actual game. The password puzzle gimmick is clever enough that I wish there was more here—more computers, more complex deduction chains, some actual investigation mechanics, literally any presentation polish. Instead, it's a brief distraction that you'll finish during a coffee break and immediately forget. For a first game jam project, it's respectable. The developer clearly understands puzzle logic and can execute a concept from start to finish. But as an experience worth recommending? Only if you've got fifteen minutes to kill and you're really, really into password puzzles. It's free, so you're only risking your time, but that time might be better spent actually resetting your own passwords to something more secure than your cat's name. I've seen worse jam games, but I've also seen filing cabinets with more personality.
Admin
Tags
puzzle
detective
password
game-jam
minimalist
short
first-person
logic
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