Learn Cryptic Crosswords 4+

After getting pretty good with the NYTimes crossword I spent some time looking into cryptics. Despite reading a bunch of articles online I found myself pretty much unable to actually do puzzles.

This app was what I needed. It was fun to work through, around the 2nd chapter I started to actually solve clues on some cryptics I was working on the side. Definitely worth the purchase price for the many hours of fun challenge. This app unlocked the world of cryptics for me!

As an American, I had difficulty with some of the Britishisms. This is definitely a British-English app. My advice to other yanks is to be prepared to give up on some clues and show a few answers from time to time. Some of this British stuff you’ll *never* get. At first I thought this was a problem but the more I got through the app the more I appreciated. The world of cryptics is filled with British puzzles so it was nice to get a leg up.

I’m normally terrible about writing reviews, but this didn’t have any ratings when I stumbled upon it in the App Store and I really loved it.

I have tried off and on for years to learn to solve cryptic crosswords and have bought several books, pretty much all the ones I could find since there isn’t much available in the US. I usually ended up with a high level understanding of the clue types but either got frustrated by the jump to solving real puzzles or got burned out trying to read a lot of dense text which didn’t stick very well since it would be hard to avoid seeing the answer and really practice.

This did a great job at both breaking up the material into small chunks I could easily resume and giving a lot of practice so I finally felt comfortable with the more difficult clue types. I also loved the example puzzles at the end which gave a good feel of the different sources of puzzles for more practice.

This uses British English which I first thought was a drawback and then realized I actually really liked it. Given that most of the puzzles available are British, being able to learn that way too felt very helpful.

Growing up, I'd watch in awe as my dad solve cryptic crosswords effortlessly. The answers never made sense to me. So one day he showed me how an anagram works in a clue. Later I tired on my own and other clue types made no sense to my young mind. This app will teach you the tricks, hidden meanings, structures used in cryptic crosswords in fun and engaging way. It's like having my dad explain it to me! :) Highly recommend.