Every Day, A New Grid
Six new boards a day. Not six variations on one puzzle - six genuinely different propositions, from a five-by-five you can finish before the kettle boils to a twenty-three-square Jumbo that will take most of an evening.
The six
- UK Classic, 15x15 - the general-knowledge daily, around twenty minutes.
- UK Quick, 13x13 - definitions, briskly. Fifteen minutes.
- UK Jumbo Concise, 23x23 - the long sit. An hour, and worth it.
- US Daily, 15x15 - the American idiom, thirty minutes.
- US Big Mini, 7x7 - ten minutes, no filler.
- US Mini, 5x5 - five minutes, and a genuine test of whether you were paying attention.
The times are guides, not limits.
Two midnights
The boards don't all turn over at once, because a daily puzzle should turn over at midnight where it belongs. The UK grids roll at midnight London. The American grids roll at midnight New York. For most of the year that means the US boards arrive five hours after the British ones, and if you solve across both traditions you effectively get two dawns.
Compete, or practise
Before the first letter goes in, you choose.
Compete runs the clock. It banks points toward your division, and it's the only mode that can put you on a leaderboard.
Practice has no timer and unlimited hints, and counts toward nothing at all. It exists because not every solve should be an examination, and because the Jumbo on a Sunday is a pastime rather than a fixture.
Then a second choice, about how much the grid is willing to tell you:
- Autocheck marks a wrong letter as you enter it.
- Check says nothing until you ask.
- Purist says nothing at all, and is scored accordingly.
The scoring follows the honesty. Purist carries the largest multiplier - and the largest penalty if you finish with errors still in the grid. Check rewards you for never pressing it. Autocheck asks nothing and grants nothing.
A daily puzzle should turn over at midnight where it belongs.
On the clock
The timer measures time on screen, not time typing. Leave the app cleanly and it pauses; come back and it resumes. There's no idle detection, and deliberately so - a puzzle you're staring at is a puzzle you're solving, and pretending otherwise would just teach people to keep a finger moving.
Streaks
A streak counts distinct days on which you finished a daily - any daily. It doesn't care which of the six, and it tolerates today being unfinished, so a streak breaks at the end of the day rather than the moment you wake up. Nothing is gated behind it. It's there because it's satisfying, which is reason enough.
What the free tier gets
One daily crossword a day, your choice from the six. Premium opens all six and the archive behind them.