BACKGROUND
Code-Cracker is compiled by Simon Shuker, and is a hugely popular addictive puzzle enjoyed in newspapers throughout the world. The puzzles provide a sometimes tough but enjoyable challenge with great solver satisfaction.

In the UK, the puzzle is known as Codeword, and appears seven times a week in the Daily Mail. In the hugely competitive UK newspaper puzzle world where the life-span of any puzzle averages only about four years, Codeword is well into its second decade as one of the Daily Mail's most popular puzzles.

Simon named the New Zealand version of his puzzle Code-Cracker, and New Zealanders also quickly took to the puzzle. It is now well-established as one of the most popular features in many New Zealand newspapers, and its presence in the majority of New Zealand's daily papers, (including the New Zealand Herald; Dominion Post; The Press and the Otago Daily Times) makes it the most widely published word-puzzle in the country.

Further afield, Simon Shuker's Code-Cracker is also enjoyed around the world, from Belfast to Bangalore; from Natal to Nairobi.

IMITATORS
In the UK, other dailies quickly became aware of the popularity of the Daily Mail's Codeword and began to introduce their own versions of the puzzle. It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: one of the most recent to introduce a puzzle was the broadsheet The Daily Telegraph who unsubtly title their puzzle Codewords.

Imitators on this side of the world have been even less subtle, with puzzles appearing under the titles Codecracker, Code-Crackers and even New Zealand's Code-Cracker, all on the coat-tails of Simon Shuker's Code-Cracker, the original Code-Cracker.

HAND-CRAFTED PUZZLES
Simon Shuker's Code-Cracker puzzles are individually handcrafted. Simon incorporates a definite "word trail" through every one of his puzzles, an important feature of his Code-Cracker. By beginning with a unique starter word (or interlocked group of starter words) and then limiting the number of new letters found at each step, the solution is revealed at a controlled rate and the challenge level is maintained.

Puzzles that are computer produced quickly "blow out" with the solver simply filling in letters for numbers, a much less satisfying solving experience, as fans of Simon's puzzle will attest.