Your password must include a Roman numeral
Any of seven letters clears it. One choice clears the next rule as well.
Rule 7 would accept a lone X. V and VII cost you the same two additions and mean Rule 9 is already solved when the game gets there.
The answer
Rule 7 of The Password Game reads: your password must include a Roman numeral. It is one of the gentler rules. Type any capital letter that carries a Roman value, and the rule goes green. A single X is enough.
The reason most people arrive here anyway is that Rule 7 looks trivial and then quietly costs them the game twenty rules later. What you add now is still sitting in your password when Rule 9 shows up and demands that all your Roman numerals multiply to 35. So the useful answer to Rule 7 is not "add an X". It is "add V and VII", which satisfies Rule 7 immediately and pre-solves Rule 9, because 5 times 7 is 35.
The seven letters that count
Roman numerals are built from seven letters. Any one of them, on its own or combined into a numeral like XIV, satisfies Rule 7.
| Numeral | Value |
|---|---|
| I | 1 |
| V | 5 |
| X | 10 |
| L | 50 |
| C | 100 |
| D | 500 |
| M | 1000 |
If you want to read any of these in depth, each has its own page: the numeral I, V, X, L, C, D and M. The full chart shows how they combine.
Capitals only
The game reads uppercase letters as Roman numerals and ignores lowercase ones. Typing vii will not clear Rule 7; VII will. This is not a bug, it is the mechanism that makes the whole game playable: without it, every lowercase v, i, x, l, c, d and m in every ordinary English word would count as a numeral and no password could ever satisfy Rule 9.
The same mechanism is your escape hatch. If a later rule forces a word containing a capital numeral letter into your password, dropping that letter to lowercase removes it from the Roman-numeral count.
How Rule 7 and Rule 9 differ
These two rules are easy to confuse because both are about Roman numerals, but they ask opposite kinds of question.
- Rule 7 is a presence check. Is there at least one Roman numeral? Many answers are correct.
- Rule 9 is a constraint on everything. Do all the Roman numerals in the password, taken together, multiply to 35? Effectively one answer is correct.
That is why solving Rule 7 carelessly is expensive. Add a lone L for Rule 7 and Rule 9 becomes impossible without going back and removing it, because 50 does not divide 35. The full worked reasoning is on which Roman numerals multiply to 35.
A worked example
Say your password so far is correcthorse4. Rule 7 lights up. You append V and VII to get correcthorse4VVII, and the rule clears. Now check what you actually wrote: the game reads capitals only, so it sees V and VII, which multiply to 35. Rule 9 is already satisfied before it appears.
One trap in that example: written together, VVII can be read as one run of letters rather than two numerals. Separate them with a lowercase letter or a full stop, for instance correcthorse4V.VII, so the two values stay distinct instead of merging into a single numeral.
Frequently asked questions
What is the answer to Rule 7 in The Password Game?
Add any Roman numeral to your password, in capitals. A single X is enough to clear the rule on its own. If you want to save yourself work later, add V and VII instead, because those two also satisfy Rule 9.
Which letters count as Roman numerals?
Seven letters carry a value: I is 1, V is 5, X is 10, L is 50, C is 100, D is 500 and M is 1000. Any of them, alone or combined into a numeral like XIV, counts as a Roman numeral.
Does a lowercase roman numeral work for Rule 7?
No. The game reads capitals only, so v and vii are ignored while V and VII are counted. That is deliberate: it is what lets you keep an ordinary lowercase v in a word without it being treated as a five.
Does Rule 7 have one right answer?
No, and that is the difference between Rule 7 and Rule 9. Rule 7 accepts any Roman numeral at all, so there are countless valid passwords. Rule 9 constrains the numerals you already have to multiply to exactly 35, which has effectively one answer.
Why does my password break Rule 9 as soon as I solve Rule 7?
Because Rule 9 counts every Roman numeral in the whole password, not just the one you added for Rule 7. A capital I in a name, or the C and V inside an uppercase word, all join the multiplication. Choose your Rule 7 numeral with Rule 9 already in mind.