Mini Crossword

About this game

Mini Crossword is a small daily crossword: a five-by-five grid, about ten clues, and a puzzle most people finish in one to three minutes. It is built for the gap in a day rather than the whole Sunday morning, and there is a new one every day at midnight in your own time zone. The answers are everyday words. Every word in the grid comes from a list of common English words, and each one was clued by hand and then checked again by an editor, so you will not meet obscure crossword filler, abbreviations or proper-noun trivia. Short words that turn up often get several different clues and the puzzle rotates through them, so the same answer does not come with the same hint every time it appears. Type on your keyboard or the on-screen keys, tap a square to choose it, and tap it again or tap the clue bar to switch between across and down. The cursor skips letters you have already filled and jumps to the next open clue when a word is done. If you get stuck, Help can check a square, a word or the whole grid, or reveal any of them. A solve without Check or Reveal counts as clean and can set your fastest time. Your streak grows for every day in a row you finish the puzzle, your grid is saved if you leave halfway, and when you are done you can share a spoiler-free result showing your time and the shape of the grid. Want more? Play an older puzzle from the archive as often as you like.

Controls

Tap a square to select it; tap it again, or tap the clue bar, to switch between across and down. Type with the on-screen keys or your keyboard.

Keyboard

• Letters fill the selected square and move the cursor on, skipping squares you have filled.
• Backspace clears a square, or steps back if it is already empty.
• Arrow keys move around the grid, and the first press turns the cursor to face that way.
• Tab or Enter jumps to the next clue with a gap, Shift + Tab to the previous one.
• Space switches between across and down.

Touch

• The arrows either side of the clue bar step through the clues.
• Help, top right, checks or reveals a square, a word or the whole grid.

How to play

Fill every white square so each across and down entry answers its clue.

• Every answer is an everyday English word of three to five letters.
• Every letter belongs to one across word and one down word, so a crossing letter is a free hint.
• The puzzle is solved the moment the last letter is right; if the grid is full and something is wrong, you are told so.

Help and streaks

• Check marks wrong letters and Reveal fills in the answer, for a square, a word or the whole grid.
• A solve without help is clean and can set your fastest time.
• Finish each day's puzzle to keep your streak; older puzzles in the archive never affect it.

Read the full Mini Crossword rules and strategy →