Games like the NYT Mini: free daily mini crosswords

If you want the same thing for free, start with the newspapers. The Los Angeles Times mini is a five by five grid each day by Elizabeth C. Gorski, with the last two weeks in an archive. Slate posts a mini every morning at 6 Eastern and keeps every past one. The Boston Globe's mini is 5x5 or 7x7 and free on its games page, and The Telegraph's mini is free in Telegraph Puzzles. DailyPlay's Crossword Mini is our own: a five by five grid a day with a timer and three hints, and no ads.

The Washington Post's Mini Meta adds a layer: a mini every day from Monday to Saturday, and once the week is out, the six grids lead to a hidden meta answer. STAT's mini is a weekday grid built around health and science, for solvers who like a theme.

If you want the mini with a twist, The Telegraph's PlusWord has you solve a small crossword and then use its letters to guess a hidden five-letter word, Wordle style. Swap from the LA Times gives you a mini with every letter already in the grid, in the wrong places. Crosswordle.org has no clues at all: each across and down word is its own small Wordle. Mini 5 makes the clock the whole game, with every hint letter costing 30 seconds.

When a mini starts to feel short, The Atlantic's crossword begins small on Monday and grows through the week, a gentle step towards full-size grids. For a free daily habit, pair the LA Times mini with Slate's.