Telegraph Crosswords

Genre: Crossword Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Telegraph Crosswords originally released on mobile devices in 2009 and ported to PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2010, and then grandfathered into the Nintendo 3DS eShop when that system was released. This game contains 500 crossword puzzles, which players solve using the touchscreen.

The presentation here is good but nothing special. The puzzles are presented in a clean fashion, backed by three light synthesized themes that all get a bit repetitive before long, but at least having some choice here is nice.

The touchscreen controls here work well enough, though entering in a word requires an on-screen keyboard which takes up half of that screen’s space. There is a little clunkiness in this game’s design, but mostly it’s pretty acceptable.

What is not as acceptable is the complete lack of a difficulty curve here. Right from the very first puzzle you have 13 Across: 5-letter word for “maladroit” (answer: Inept), 17 Across: 3-letter word for Moke (answer: Ass), 18 Down: 5-letter word for Ruck (answer: Scrum). Perhaps regular crossword aficionados will be used to semi-obscure words like these, but I consider myself fairly skilled with the English language and I was left scratching my head at some of the clues and answers on offer here.

Do you think I’m complaining about nothing and words like the above are easy? Well, then perhaps you may enjoy Telegraph Crosswords. But I feel most players will just find themselves frustrated and reaching for the “hint” feature so often that it makes this entire thing a pointless exercise. As such, I can’t really recommend this game.

tl;dr – Telegraph Crosswords is a collection of 500 Crossword Puzzles. The controls here are a little awkward but workable, but the puzzles themselves have no semblance of a difficulty curve, starting with somewhat obscure words right from the start. Unless you are a huge fan of Crossword Puzzles, I think you’re best off avoiding this game.

Grade: C

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