Crossword Mini

Tips for Crossword Mini

Crossword Mini rewards a quick first pass. Read through the clues and fill in the ones you are sure of straight away, because every letter you place is also a letter in a crossing word. A five by five grid has very few squares, so two or three confident answers usually give you enough to guess the rest. Remember that the cursor jumps to the next clue on its own, so you can keep typing without reaching for the mouse.

If you are new, start in Practice on Easy, where the words are more common and there are a few more black squares to help. Hard opens the grid out with almost no black squares, so every letter has to work both ways. When a corner will not come, use Check before Reveal: a red dot on a wrong letter often tells you which answer to rethink, and you still get to solve it yourself. Save Reveal for the moments when you would rather move on.

How to play Crossword Mini

Crossword Mini is a five by five crossword: fill every white square so that each Across and Down answer fits its clue. Start with the Daily puzzle, or pick Practice and choose Easy, Medium or Hard.

Tap or click a square to select it, and the clue for that word appears in the band under the grid. Tap the same square again to switch between Across and Down; on a keyboard, Space does the same. Type the answer and the cursor runs along the word, then jumps to the next clue on its own. Backspace steps back and rubs out a letter, and the arrow keys and Tab move you round the grid. Every letter you place also belongs to a crossing word, so each answer you are sure of helps with the ones around it.

When you are unsure, Check puts a small red ink dot on any wrong letter without telling you the right one. Reveal hands you a square, a word or the whole puzzle, and Clear rubs out the grid so you can start again. The clock stops the moment the last square is filled, and your best time for each mode is kept in your browser. On a phone the grid sits at the top with the current clue under it and a keyboard below. Turn the phone sideways, or play on a computer, and the full clue list appears down the right-hand side. P pauses and M mutes.

About Crossword Mini

Crosswords have been a newspaper favourite for more than a hundred years, and the mini crossword is their quick daily form: a grid small enough to finish over a cup of coffee. Crossword Mini is laid out like a corner of a Sunday paper, with a masthead, warm newsprint and a cafe table around it, and your letters go down in a fountain pen hand that wobbles slightly, the way real handwriting does.

It suits anyone who enjoys words but does not always have time for a full-size crossword. Most puzzles take two or three minutes, so it works well as a daily habit, and because the Daily puzzle is built from the date, everyone solves the same grid and you can keep a streak going. Practice gives you fresh grids for as long as you like at three difficulties, built on the spot from more than two thousand short words, each with a clue written for this game. Check and Reveal mean a beginner is never stuck for long, while Hard, with almost no black squares, gives experienced solvers more to think about.

Frequently asked questions