Daily Mirror Cryptic Crossword

The Daily Mirror Cryptic Crossword runs on games.mirror.co.uk, the Mirror's games site, in the same crossword player as its main, quick and quiz crosswords. The player is built by kr3m, who also make the Daily Express puzzles. A fresh grid arrives every day, Sunday too, and everyone who opens it on that date gets the same clues.

The grid is 11 by 11 with about 25 clues, most of them short. Today's mixed answers of three to seven letters with an eleven-letter word and a three-word phrase. Each clue joins a plain definition at one end with wordplay at the other: anagrams, hidden words, sounds, reversals and abbreviations. The clue list sits beside the grid on a desktop. On a phone the grid fills the top of the screen, the current clue shows in a bar, and the game's own keyboard sits underneath.

A timer runs from the start and cannot be paused, and the site gives points for a fast, accurate solve. You get three Jokers per puzzle, each revealing one letter, and watching a short advert earns more. The date shows how much of the grid you have filled as a percentage. The arrows beside it open earlier days.

It is a lighter cryptic than the big broadsheet grids, so it suits solvers learning the conventions or anyone wanting a short cryptic with a coffee. The page carries display ads, and a video advert usually plays before the grid opens.