Crossword puzzles are popular word games. They tease your brain, teach you new things, and they’re a fun, but calm way to pass the time. There are a metric ton of crossword puzzle games on Android. Most of them act about the same. You get puzzles, you fill them out, and that’s that. However, there are some that rise above the rest for a variety of reasons such as complexity, controls, design, and uniqueness. Let’s look at the best crossword games for Android!
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Bonza Word Puzzle
Price: Free / Up to $29.99
Bona Word Puzzle is a unique spin on the crossword puzzle. Generally, you get one clue and the answers all have to do with that clue. It’s kind of a mix between a trivia game and a crossword. The game includes a ton of free puzzles to complete or you can buy more with in-app purchases. Additionally, there is a puzzle creator to make your own if you want to. Those puzzles are shareable with the Bonza community. Thus, you have a ton of overall options. It’s more arcade like than typical crossword games, but it’s still a decent option overall.
CodyCross
Price: Free to play
CodyCross is another entertaining mix between trivia games and crossword games. This one has a set category and all of the clues revolve around that single premise. You go down the line and answer all of the questions you can. The game includes hundreds of puzzles, cloud syncing, and a four difficulty modes. You can buy more packs with tokens or subscribe to unlock everything. We definitely do not recommend the subscription method, but the free version is good enough to kill some time.
Crosswords with Friends
Price: Free to play
Crosswords with Friends is Zynga’s variant on the crossword genre. You play it competitively against friends, the AI, or random people on the Internet. It has new puzzles daily and they contain mostly modern pop culture clues. The game also includes leaderboards, weekly challenges, puzzle packs, and a hint system if you need it. You basically solve one part of the puzzle and pass it off to the opponent for them to solve one. It’s more traditional in how it looks and plays, but with an arcade element and an online social element.
Cryptic Crossword
Price: Free / $3.99
Cryptic Crossword is one of only a few good premium crossword games. It has a single cost with no additional in-app purchases or ads. The game comes with 260 puzzles, an answer checker system, a pinch-to-zoom grid, and a few additional customization features. It comes across like what we would expect a traditional crossword game to be. It’s just you, a crossword puzzle, and a whole list of clues. There are enough puzzles there to keep you busy for a while. The developer has a few additional crossword games as well.
English Crossword
Price: Free / Up to $8.99
English Crossword is another one of the traditional style crossword games. The game features over 400 offline puzzles, various themes, and a hint system if you need it. The game is definitely U.S. English and not British English. A lot of the clues are U.S. oriented as well. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but something to keep in mind. You also get achievements, cloud syncing, and leaderboards. It’s a good run-of-the-mill crossword game and its prices aren’t too steep.
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ISTG Crossword Puzzle Free
Price: Free
ISTG Crossword Puzzle Free is a decent crossword puzzle game for those on a budget. It’s entirely free with no in-app purchases, although it does have ads. The game features over 400 puzzles and all of them are available offline. Additionally, it has over 100 puzzles in Spanish and 50 in Portuguese. Most of the complaints we found were for its U.S. centric clues and word spellings. The app also has a few bugs. There isn’t much else about it. It’s decent, it has a ton of puzzles, and it’s free with tolerable ads.
New York Times Crossword
Price: Free / $6.95 per month / $39.95 per year
The New York Times Crossword is easily one of the most expensive crossword games on the list. However, it’s also one of the most famous. It boasts over 20 years worth of crossword puzzles for subscribers along with fresh puzzles every week. There is also a mini crossword mode that you can access for free without a subscription. There are enough crosswords here to last you for a very long time although you do have to pay every month to access them. However, there is a healthy amount of free content as well. The app definitely needs some work, but the content is solid.
Picture Perfect Crossword
Price: Free
Picture Perfect Crossword is another crossword hybrid game. It uses photographs as clues instead of traditional words. It doesn’t change the experience all that much, but it does add a bit of variance to the game. The game includes hundreds of puzzles, Facebook integration, a hint system, and fresh puzzles on a regular basis. It likely won’t appeal to the hardcore crossword fan base, but it’s more than good enough for those looking to kill a few minutes.
Redstone Games Crossword Puzzle
Price: Free / Up to $4.99
Redstone Games has another fairly decent crossword game. The says its free, but you can buy a lot of the content there so we won’t tell you it is. It’s a fairly typical, traditional crossword puzzle game. You get clues, fill out the boxes, and hope for the best. The game tells you when an answer is wrong and gives you hints if you need them. It’s also playable offline and it gets a decent amount of fresh content fairly consistently. A lot of that fresh content is free, but not all of it. This should appease many crossword fans.
Bonus: Physical crossword puzzle books
Price: Varies
Crossword games are quite old and there are a metric ton of excellent, physical crossword puzzle books. One of the most popular options is the Simon & Schuster collection, available on Amazon. You can also buy old volumes of The New York Times Crossword as well. There are literally thousands of other examples, but those two of the most popular. Of course, these translate poorly to ebook readers so we wouldn’t recommend something like Google Play Books. However, any app or site that sells books like Amazon will do the trick.
If we missed any great crossword games for Android, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists!