The iTunes description for Crickler 2 states that this take on the crossword puzzle genre is an "adaptive" experience, that automatically adjusts itself to your own skill level and knowledge. That's a good thing, as this streamlined crossword puzzle game offers fairly difficult clues that you might find yourself "cheating" to solve (ahem, Google). From the beginning, Crickler 2 offers you the chance to complete dozens of crosswords, where letter squares are simply listed directly below the clue text, rather than being an assortment or horizontal and vertical lines. You'll type the letters to each answer, and will see the line turn green if your answer is correct. In typical crossword fashion, placing letters in one word will allow those letters to show up in other words, which give you a better chance of solving said clues if you didn't know the answer on your own. There's also a marking on each square if the missing letter is a vowel.
You'll have a limited number of credits in your account with which to "purchase" puzzles to play (you can earn more credits for free or purchase them with real cash). These puzzles are categorized, separating general trivia or history puzzles from sports or television puzzles, for instance. Oddly enough, some categories are filled only with the most specific of topics, like "Lord of the Rings" or "Project Runway Trivia," or worse, are completely empty. Luckily, new puzzles are added to the game on a daily basis, so you'll never truly run out of puzzles to play, even if you need to waste a credit on playing a puzzle with a topic you might not be incredibly familiar with.
Thankfully, you can have multiple puzzles active at once, if you decide to take a break from a specific theme, and you can share your progress with friends via Facebook and Twitter integration. What's more, if the adaptive difficulty doesn't work for you, and puzzles are still too difficult, you can manually change the difficulty or use hints to solve particular puzzles.
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Ultimately, Crickler 2 does contain some elements that make the experience more beginner-friendly, but someone that simply dislikes the mental challenge of crosswords likely won't become a fan because of the game. Likewise, the lack of general knowledge puzzles in some of the categories makes them fairly useless unless you happen to be a fan of the very specific topics that are available. Still, there's the potential for limitless puzzles being added in the future, so if you're already a fan of crossword puzzles, Crickler 2 is likely worth the free download.
Click here to download Crickler 2 on iTunes ---->
Have you tried Crickler 2 or a crossword game like it on your smartphone / tablet? What do you think of Crickler 2's puzzle variety? Sound off in the comments!