I love crossword puzzles. I usually stink at them, but I love ’em. Give me a group of three or four people who all have wide ranges of interests, and I enjoy attempting even the harder puzzles. But on my own I’m usually only good for maybe a third of the answers.
Which is why I went looking for a good software program for my Mac. I wanted a crossword puzzle application that would allow me to download crossword puzzles off the Internet (either from gaming sites or from the websites of newspapers such as the NY Times). I wanted a program that looked nice, let me do most of the work fright from the keyboard, and above all, I was looking for a program that would help me when I got stuck!
In a shareware application called KrossWordz, I’ve found exactly what I was looking for. KrossWordz is the work of Jerome Foucher, and does everything I outlined above. In addition, it provides a timer so I can see how long a puzzle takes (or, conversely, how much time I’m wasting!), plus it provides access to OneAcross, a website dedicated to helping crossword puzzle players such as myself, who are having a hard time with a particular clue.
KrossWordz has a nice interface, perhaps not quite as modern as a newer program such as Black Ink, but where it suffers (although only slightly, in my opinion), in its interface, it really shines in the sheer number of puzzles it can access. While Black Ink has a list of perhaps 8-9 crossword puzzle websites it can download from, KrossWordz includes more than 20! Many of these sites offer daily puzzles (such as you’d find in the newspaper), while others are weekly, such as the Sunday paper puzzle.
It’s fantastic. Just click which source you’d like to grab a puzzle from, and if you’re connected to the Internet, KrossWordz grabs the newest puzzle and off you go. You can pretty much fill in a puzzle without taking your hands off the keyboard, too, which in my book is always a plus. You can use the keyboard to move from square to square (hitting the space bar toggles between the horizontal and the vertical), and when you’re ready to fill in an answer, just start typing, and KrossWordz moves you to the next space (or the next empty space, if you’ve already filled in one of the intersecting answers).
What else? I mentioned I was looking for a program that would help me out when I was stuck, and KrossWordz does that just as well as any other program I’ve used. If I’m stuck on a particular letter, KrossWordz will only help with a single letter. If I’m stuck on a word, KrossWordz will give it to me. And if I’m done as much as I can and just want to see all the answers, KrossWordz will fill in the rest of the puzzle for me. And if I don’t necessarily want help, but want to make sure I’m on the right track, KrossWordz will check everything I’ve already typed, and highlight any squares that have incorrect letters.
So far, everything I’ve written about is something that Black Ink can do. Aside from having massively more sources, of course, KrossWordz is pretty similar to Black Ink. Black Ink has a slightly more modern appearance, at least in my opinion, but that’s more a matter of preference, and besides, the appearance, in this case, doesn’t affect the playability at all.
Then why do I recommend KrossWordz over Black Ink?
Because I’m stingy. While Black Ink sells for $24.95 – and is likely worth it; it is a very good program – KrossWordz sells for a measly eight dollars. That’s right…. eight bucks! It’s a steal, I tell you. A steal. So go buy it now; if you like crossword puzzles, you won’t regret it.
The only thing – and this is definitely nit-picking – that I see could be improved with KrossWordz is that it doesn’t currently allow for users to add online sources for downloading crossword puzzles. At the moment, if you know of a site that offers new puzzles, you’ll have to download them yourself. KrossWordz can play any puzzle in the common .puz format, but it can’t download them from a website automatically unless the site is already in its built-in list.
Still, that one small shortcoming in no way lessens my appreciation for KrossWordz. Besides, as the developer said when I asked him about possibly adding another source, “you won’t find any other source.” And I believe him. I looked around, but the only places I could see that offered puzzles are already in the KrossWordz database. I’m sold on KrossWordz. It’s a tiny program, not even one megabyte in size, yet it packs a punch. It’s fast, friendly, and helps me when I want the help. Give it a try, it’s a great program.
