Wrenword

What is a mini crossword?

A mini crossword is a crossword shrunk down to a few minutes. Our Daily Mini is a 5 by 5 grid with a handful of black squares, around ten answers in all. Every white square belongs to one Across answer and one Down answer, so every letter you write helps you with the clue that crosses it.

We write every clue ourselves. Answers are everyday words and well-known phrases, never abbreviations, never names you'd need trivia for, and never the odd little words that only show up in crosswords. If you know English and have a minute, you can solve a Wrenword. It's free, plays in your browser on phone, tablet or computer, and there's nothing to download.

How to play

• Tap Daily Mini on the menu, then Start. The clock starts when you do, not when the page opens.
• Tap a square to pick it. The whole answer it belongs to lights up blue, and its clue shows in the bar under the grid.
• Tap the same square again to switch between Across and Down. Tapping the clue bar does the same thing.
• Type with the keyboard at the bottom of the screen. We built our own, so your phone's keyboard never pops up over the grid.
• When you finish a word, we move you to the next clue that still has empty squares. Use the arrows on the clue bar to jump around yourself.
• Fill every square correctly and the puzzle is solved. If the grid is full but something is off, we tell you so you can hunt for it.

Controls on a keyboard

On a computer the clue lists sit beside the grid, and you can solve without touching the mouse.

The Daily Mini and the Weekend Grid

There's one Daily Mini a day, the same for everyone, and it changes at midnight UTC. Monday's is the gentlest. The clues lean a little more on wordplay as the week goes on, up to Saturday, and Sunday eases off again. On the menu, the dots next to the day give you a feel for it before you start.

On Saturdays and Sundays there's also a Weekend Grid, a 7 by 7 crossword with longer answers. It takes most people a few minutes more than the Mini and makes a nice second puzzle with breakfast.

Check, reveal and autocheck

Everyone gets stuck sometimes. Check looks at a letter, a word or the whole grid, marks wrong letters in red and locks in the right ones. Reveal fills in a letter, a word or the whole puzzle, and revealed squares get a small blue corner. Autocheck flags wrong letters as you type.

These helpers are always free and always there. Using them marks your solve as assisted, which keeps that time off the daily board. Your streak still counts, unless you reveal the whole puzzle. Pencil mode writes gray letters for guesses, and they count like normal letters when you finish.

Times, boards and streaks

Your first clean solve of today's Daily Mini posts your time to the daily leaderboard. It posts once. Replays, reloads, a second tab and a puzzle that runs past midnight never post a second time. The pause button hides the grid while the clock is stopped, so every time on the board is a fair one.

The all-time board counts clean solves: every Daily Mini and Weekend Grid you finish without helpers on its own day adds one. Your streak grows each day you finish the Daily Mini, and the week strip on the menu shows how your last seven days went.

The archive and practice

Missed a day? Open the Archive for a calendar of every past puzzle. Gold days are clean solves, blue days had a little help, and a green corner marks a day with a Weekend Grid. Archive puzzles are just for fun and never touch the boards, so take your time.

Practice holds hundreds of extra minis and big grids that aren't tied to any day. They're a good way to warm up, or to keep going when one puzzle a day isn't enough.

Tips for solving faster

• Read the Down clues early. Many people only work Across, but the Down answers often fall faster and fill half of every Across word for you.
• Start where you're sure. A confident three letter answer in a corner gives you the first letter of two longer words.
• Watch the clue's grammar. A plural clue wants a plural answer, and a clue in the past tense wants a past tense answer.
• A question mark at the end of a clue means wordplay. Read it twice and look for a second meaning.
• Leave Skip filled squares on in Settings. When you go back to fix a word, typing jumps over the letters you already have.
• If you're racing the clock, don't stop to admire a finished word. The cursor has already moved on, so keep typing.

Make it yours

Settings has light and dark looks, high contrast, bigger letters, an option to hide the timer, vibration, and the typing switches: skip filled squares, jump to the next clue, and backspace into the last word. You can also turn our on-screen keyboard on or off. Every square, clue and key has a label for screen readers, and keys are a comfortable size on phones.

Your puzzle saves as you type, right down to the square you were on and the time on the clock. Sign in on Airscape Works and your streak, calendar and puzzle in progress follow you to your other devices. If you like word puzzles, try Cipher Cafe for cryptograms or Petal Words.

Questions