About Shift Cipher
The shift cipher is one of the oldest codes known. Julius Caesar is said to have used it for his private letters, moving each letter three places along the alphabet. It is simple to make and, as you are about to find, simple to break.
How it works
A proverb has been encoded with a shift somewhere between one and twenty-five. You have four buttons: back one, forward one, back five and forward five. Each press moves every letter of the message together, and the text on screen changes at once. The game counts how many times you turn the dial.
When the shift is right, the message turns green and the game tells you what the shift was.
Solving it with thought instead of patience
You could simply press "forward one" until the message appears. It will, within twenty-five presses. The more satisfying way is to work out the shift and go straight there.
Find a one-letter word. In English it can only be A or I. Count how far the coded letter is from A, and you have a candidate shift. If that gives nonsense, try I.
Look for the most common letter in the message. There is a good chance it stands for E. Count the distance from E to that letter.
Look for a three-letter word. THE is by far the most likely. If the coded word has the pattern of three different letters and appears early, test it.
Once you have a number, use the five-step buttons to get close and the single steps to finish. A good solve takes four or five turns of the dial.
It is a small history lesson disguised as one of our HTML5 games.