Home » Play Games » Mini Crossword
Tap a square or a clue to play.
Across
Down
Pick a puzzle, or take on today’s Daily Mini.
⌨️ Tap a square or a clue, then type • Tap the square again to swap Across and Down • A finished word pays 40 points
A mini crossword you can finish with your morning coffee, right here, free. This is Mini Crossword, an original GameOLL puzzle game. Every puzzle is a tidy 5 by 5 grid, handmade by us, with fresh clues written for this game only. Small grids, fair clues, no obscure traps: most minis take two to five minutes, and each one ends with a clean, satisfying click into place.
Work through a bank of fifteen puzzles in any order you like, or take the Daily Mini: one puzzle a day, the same for every player, with a streak that grows each day you finish it. Checks and reveals are there when a letter will not come, and your times, streaks and solved puzzles all save in your browser. No download. No sign-up.
Genre
Word · Puzzle
Players
1 Player
Platform
Browser · Mobile · PC
Price
Free
In this guide
- How to play
- Checks, reveals and scoring
- The Daily Mini and streaks
- 6 tips for faster minis
- Mini Crossword FAQ
- Final verdict
How to play Mini Crossword
A mini crossword is the classic crossword, shrunk to its best part. Five squares by five, a handful of words crossing each other, and clues you can actually solve. Here is the whole game.
- Open the puzzle menu and pick any of the fifteen puzzles, or press Daily Mini for today’s puzzle. The grid appears with its Across and Down clue lists below it.
- Tap a square, or tap a clue. The word you picked lights up, and its clue shows above the keyboard. Type letters with the keyboard on screen, or with your own keyboard on a PC. The cursor walks along the word as you type.
- Swap direction any time. Tap the selected square again, tap another clue, or press the A/D key. Words cross each other, so a letter you know from an Across word often unlocks the Down word through it.
- Every word you complete correctly lights up and pays 40 points. Fill every white square with the right letter to finish the puzzle.
- Your time, final score and a time bonus show at the end. Finish in under ten minutes and the bonus adds up to 600 extra points, dropping by one point for every second you take.
Controls for phone and PC
| Action | Phone / tablet | PC / laptop |
|---|---|---|
| Choose a word | Tap a square, or tap its clue | Click a square, or click its clue |
| Type a letter | Tap the on-screen keyboard | Press the letter key, or click the on-screen keyboard |
| Swap Across / Down | Tap the selected square again, or tap A⇄D | Tap the square again, or press Enter or Tab |
| Move around the grid | Tap any square | Click any square, or use the arrow keys |
| Delete a letter | Tap the ⌫ key | Press Backspace |
| Check or reveal | Tap Check Letter, Check Word or Reveal | Click Check Letter, Check Word or Reveal |
Checks, reveals and scoring
Stuck on one stubborn letter? The three helper tools are honest trades: a little score for a little certainty. Each tool has a fixed stock per puzzle, shown on its button, so spend them where they count.
| Tool | What it does | Cost | Per puzzle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Check Letter | Tells you if the selected letter is right. A right letter locks in green; a wrong one is marked red | 15 points | 5 uses |
| Check Word | Checks the whole selected word at once and marks every wrong letter in it | 25 points | 3 uses |
| Reveal Letter | Fills in the correct letter and locks it, so it can never be lost | 30 points | 3 uses |
| Finished word | Every word completed correctly, by typing, checking or revealing | +40 points | Every word |
| Time bonus | 600 minus your seconds, added when you finish. Never below zero | Up to +600 | Every finish |
Your score never drops below zero, so a check early in a quiet puzzle is free in practice. The points only start to bite once your words start paying. Note what a check does to the letters: a right letter locks, which means it stays put and keeps paying towards its word. A wrong letter stays in the grid in red until you type over it, so you always know which guesses are still guesses.
The Daily Mini and streaks
Every day, one of the fifteen puzzles becomes the Daily Mini, and it is the same puzzle for every player in the world that day. The pick rotates through the whole bank, so across any fifteen days you will meet every puzzle once. Because the Daily is built from the date itself, there is nothing to download and no server to wait for: today’s puzzle is ready the moment the page loads.
Finish the Daily Mini and your daily streak grows by one. Miss a day and the streak starts again, while your best streak stays saved as the record to chase. The menu also keeps count of the puzzles you have finished, which of the fifteen you have solved and your best time on each, plus your fastest finish anywhere in the bank. It all lives in your own browser. Nothing is uploaded, and no account is needed.
6 tips for faster minis
- Start with the short words. Two and three letter answers are the mortar of a mini. Fill the ones you know first, and their letters start spelling the long words for you.
- Let crossings do the work. A 5 by 5 grid is almost all crossings. When a long word will not come, leave it and solve the words that cross it. Two or three letters in place usually give the answer away.
- Read the clue’s shape. A clue that ends with a question mark is playing with words. A clue with ‘for short’ or ‘briefly’ wants an abbreviation. A fill-in-the-blank clue, like ‘Corn on the ___’, is usually the friendliest one on the page.
- Watch the tense and the plural. If the clue is past tense, the answer almost always ends in ED. If the clue is plural, look for an S at the end. Those two endings solve a surprising share of mini words.
- Spend checks late, reveals last. Early words are cheap to solve with crossings. Save your five letter checks for the endgame, when one letter stands between you and the time bonus, and keep reveals for the letter no crossing can prove.
- Race the clock only after a clean solve. The time bonus fades one point per second, but a wrong letter costs more in re-typing than it saves in speed. Solve it right, then solve it fast on the replay: your best time on every puzzle is saved.
Is Mini Crossword free and safe to play?
Yes. The game is free. It runs fully inside this page. It asks for no name, no email and no account. It installs nothing on your device. Your times, streaks and solved puzzles stay in your browser only. Mini Crossword is an original game made by GameOLL, and every grid and every clue in the bank was written for this game.
More games and guides on GameOLL
- Want every game in one place? Visit our Play Games page.
- Love a daily word habit? Play Word Guess, our five-letter word guessing game.
- Prefer hunting words to building them? Play Word Search Quest, our word search game.
- Want numbers instead of letters? Play Sudoku Master, our sudoku game.
- Need a speed test for your fingers? Try Typing Speed Test.
- Prefer a board to a grid? Play Checkers Master, our checkers game.
Mini Crossword FAQ
Is Mini Crossword free to play?
Yes. Mini Crossword is 100% free. You play all fifteen puzzles and the Daily Mini right on this page, in your browser. There is no download, no sign-up and no payment.
How many puzzles are there?
There are fifteen handmade 5 by 5 puzzles in the bank, and you can play any of them at any time, in any order. One of them also serves as the Daily Mini each day, rotating through the whole bank.
How do Check and Reveal work?
Check Letter tests the selected letter for 15 points, Check Word tests the whole selected word for 25 points, and Reveal fills in the correct letter for 30 points. You get 5 letter checks, 3 word checks and 3 reveals per puzzle, and your score never drops below zero.
How does scoring work?
Every word you complete correctly pays 40 points. Checks and reveals spend points: 15, 25 and 30. When you finish, a time bonus of 600 minus your seconds is added, so a fast, clean solve scores the most.
What is the Daily Mini?
One puzzle a day, and it is the same puzzle for every player. The daily pick rotates through all fifteen puzzles in the bank. Finish it to grow your daily streak, then come back tomorrow for the next one.
Can I play Mini Crossword on my phone?
Yes. The grid and the on-screen keyboard are built for touch, and the 5 by 5 grid fits a phone screen in portrait. It also works with a mouse and a real keyboard on laptops and desktop PCs.
Final verdict: should you play Mini Crossword?
Yes — if you want a real crossword in a coffee-break size. Mini Crossword is free, instant and honest: fifteen handmade grids, clues written for this game alone, no download and no account. The checks and reveals keep a stuck puzzle moving, the time bonus gives fast solvers something to chase, and the Daily Mini turns the whole thing into a small daily habit with a streak to protect. Pick puzzle one and see how fast a grid can fall.
▶ Play Mini Crossword 🎮 See All Free GamesLast updated: November 5, 2026. Mini Crossword v1.0 — the first release of our original mini crossword game, with fifteen handmade 5 by 5 puzzles, original clues, checks and reveals, a time bonus and a Daily Mini with streaks. An original GameOLL browser game. Found a bug? Tell us in the comments and we will fix it in the next version.
