How to play
A crossword is a grid of interlocking words where each word has a numbered clue. You fill the cells until they are all complete, and what makes it a puzzle rather than a quiz is that the words share letters: every one you get right hands you letters in the ones that cross it.
Click a cell or a clue to choose which word you are writing, and type. Clicking twice on a cell where two words cross switches from the across word to the down one.
How to attack a crossword
1. The certain ones first
Read every clue before writing anything and fill in only the ones you know without hesitating. It may seem like little, but each word placed scatters letters across the grid and turns impossible clues into clues with three of five letters already there.
2. Count the cells
This is the most wasted piece of information on the board. If a clue admits two answers and only one has the number of letters the grid allows, it is already solved. Before dismissing an idea, count it.
3. Use the crossings backwards
When a word resists, do not stare at it: look at the ones crossing it. If you know the third letter is a Q, the options narrow brutally. Working from the letters you already have is faster than trying to guess the whole word from the clue.
4. Be suspicious of short clues
A clue of two or three words usually points to a short, common answer. Long, elaborate clues normally hide a rarer word, and those are worth leaving until the grid has given you letters for free.
Where these crosswords come from
The words and the clues are the same ones the MenteBrillante app uses, and the same algorithm lays them out. Before publication each crossword is checked: that every word is placed, that both words agree on the letter at each crossing, and that no word is left floating without crossing another. That last case is the dangerous one, because a crossword with a floating word is not a crossword, it is two puzzles glued together.