Wordminos

About Wordminos

Wordminos is a word puzzle by Danny Yaroslavski that plays in a web browser and is made for a phone held upright. Its subtitle, Crosswords, meet Dominos, describes it well: instead of answering clues, you are handed a set of coloured pieces, each one or two squares long and carrying letters, and you have to lay them on a board so the result is a finished crossword.

The board shows small coloured markers. Every piece belongs on a marker of its own colour, and once all pieces are down, each row and each column of letters must spell a real word. You drag pieces to move them and tap them to turn them, and you can pan and zoom around a larger board. A short tutorial walks through the first moves before the real puzzles start.

Each day there are two puzzles: the Daily and a quicker Mini, the same for everyone. When you finish you can share your result. The free game has no ads and needs no account. An optional upgrade, sold without a subscription, adds hundreds of extra puzzles, the archive of past daily puzzles and offline play.

The game can be played in English, French, Spanish and Russian, each with its own word list. It suits players who like Waffle or Shards: the words are already on the pieces, and the work is in seeing which piece goes where so that every crossing holds.

How to play Wordminos

1. Open the game and choose the day's Daily or Mini puzzle.
2. Look at the coloured markers on the board and the coloured letter pieces below it.
3. Drag a piece onto a marker of its own colour; tap a piece to rotate it.
4. Arrange the pieces so that every row and column of letters spells a word.
5. Place every piece to finish the crossword, then share your result if you like.

Screenshots

Tips

• Start with the pieces whose colour has only one marker on the board: they can go in just one place.
• Long words across the board fix many crossings at once, so settle them early.
• On a large board, pinch to zoom out and see how the colour markers line up before moving pieces.

Questions