Crossword Mini

Crossword Mini is a small crossword laid out the way a Sunday paper lays one out: a masthead in a serif you have seen a thousand times, two thin rules under it, and a grid of five squares by five printed on warm paper that has taken a little ink bleed. The table around it is a cafe table in morning light, with a cup that has left a ring, a croissant on a plate and a pair of reading glasses folded at the edge. Every letter you write goes down in a fountain pen hand that wobbles very slightly, the way real handwriting does.

Tap a square to pick it, tap it again to turn from Across to Down, and type. The cursor runs to the end of the word and jumps to the next clue on its own, backspace steps back and rubs the letter out, and the arrow keys and Tab walk you around the grid. When you are stuck, Check puts a small red ink dot on any letter that is wrong, and Reveal will hand you a square, a word or the whole puzzle. Clear takes a pencil eraser to the lot. On a phone the grid sits at the top with the clue under it and a keyboard under your thumbs; turn the phone sideways, or open it on a laptop, and the full clue list prints down the right-hand side like a real page.

There is one Daily puzzle, built from the date, so everyone gets the same grid on the same day and your run of days is kept. Practice deals fresh grids forever at three sizes: Easy leans on common words and a few more black squares, Medium tightens up, and Hard opens the grid out with almost no black squares at all. The grids are built on the spot from a list of well over two thousand short words, each with a clue written for this game, and thirty hand-checked puzzles ride along in the file so there is always one ready the instant you ask. Best times per mode and your streak live in your browser and nowhere else.