Crossword Games

How do you get started on a crossword?

The order most solvers use is not the order the clues are printed in.

1. Read every clue once without answering anything, and fill in only what you are certain of.
2. Take the short entries next. Three and four letter words have fewer possibilities and they hand you letters for free.
3. Use the crossings. One letter you are sure of can turn a clue with six plausible answers into a clue with one.
4. Leave the clues that sound like riddles until the grid has filled in around them.
5. Come back tomorrow. A clue that will not move today is often obvious after a night's sleep, and that is the puzzle working rather than you failing.

What makes one crossword harder than another?

Not the vocabulary, usually, which is the assumption most people start with. Setters make a grid harder by writing clues that read two ways, by leaning on abbreviations and proper nouns, and by reducing the number of crossings so a wrong answer stays hidden longer.

A Monday grid and a Saturday grid can use the same words and feel like different games entirely. If a puzzle is beating you, the useful question is not whether you know enough words but whether the clues are being written to mislead.

What the different styles are

• Straight or definition clues say what the answer means, more or less directly. Most daily American grids work this way.
• Themed grids hide a connection between the long answers, and finding it makes the rest easier rather than harder.
• Cryptic clues contain a definition and a piece of wordplay, both pointing at the same answer. They are a separate hobby with their own rules.
• Minis are five by five, take a few minutes, and are the best way back in after a long gap.

Where to start

1. Easy Crossword if you are returning to the habit after a break.
2. Daily Crossword for the standard grid, new every morning.
3. Stan's Daily Crossword and Sheffer Crossword for the styles their names are known for.
4. Thomas Joseph Crossword for something a little tighter.
5. 7 Words if you want the clue-and-answer feel without a full grid.

Why a daily habit suits this puzzle

A crossword is one of the few games that is better in small regular doses than in long sessions. The grid is finite, it can be finished, and finishing it is the whole reward. That fits a morning coffee in a way that an endless game never will, and it is the reason the daily crossword outlived almost every other newspaper feature.

It is also the category people stay with longest here, by some distance. Whatever that is worth, it is not a claim we are making about your brain.