I'm a little annoyed with this one. I figured it out in about 5 minutes, but I was convinced it wasn't the right answer because 1. The answer doesn't look like a real word, and 2. You don't actually need the keys to decode the cipher. Since the description gives you the position of each ciphertext letter, you can skip straight to the answer without actually getting the ciphertext (which is what I did before I saw the keys). I also read too much into the part about "P1 and P4 had a similar back-and-forth" which I took to mean that there would be multiple steps

I think you are right, the keys are irrelevant. I used cherry bomb for both keys and it didn't make a difference, still got the right answer.

Okay. I got this okay without looking at any hints. I spent a lot of time, though, trying to find a convention for referring to the top, left and right of a player's square. Eventually, just checked out all four variations, plus the one using the page itself as a guide. It felt a little annoying, but in reality, didn't take all that long to just check them out. It becomes clear pretty quickly if they're not going anywhere. Of course, I tried the right one, last.

My only problem with this one is the creation of the unciphered square omitting Q rather than J as most of the googled examples do ... glad there was a clue to eventually tell me this!

Agreed! Once you realize it is a four square cipher and the bounces determine which ciphered letters to choose from squares 2 and 3, the mapping into the unciphered squares (1 and 4) is the same no matter the contents of 2 and 3 ... so the keys are completely irrelevant methinks!

Hint 3 says to use speed and accuracy as the keys, but I used four and square, which worked. I don’t know how, but... I’m not complaining!