Today I’m reviewing the USA Today Crossword Challenge for the Nintendo DS, and if any gaming platform screams to have a crossword game it’s the Nintendo DS with its dual screens, one of them a touch screen, and its compact pocket size.  I only wish that the game creators, Destineer, took the time to make a good crossword game, but I get ahead of myself.

Every morning on my walk in to work, I stop to grab a free Chicago Tribune RedEye paper, and the first thing I do upon arriving at my desk is work on the RedEye Sudoku to wake-up my brain.  Then at lunchtime I do the RedEye crossword puzzle, often with the help of my lunchtime companions.  So I’m no stranger when it comes to crossword puzzles.  However, I should point out that I am very much old school when it comes to a crossword in that I prefer the feel of the newspaper with pencil in hand.  That said, I do partake of the electronic version of the challenge, in fact I have a crossword game on my iPhone, of which I am rather fond, and I have often played online versions to pass the time. 

The thing is, I often find that the electronic version of a crossword game makes it too easy to ‘cheat’ by including hints in the form of revealing letters or marking letters as incorrect.  When I play these electronic challenges I frequently find myself in a persuasive argument with myself that if I just reveal this letter, it will help me get this word which will allow me to fill in this section… Revealing one letter isn’t really ‘cheating,’ is it?

Across

The first thing that comes up after turning on the USA Today Crossword Challenge is the option for playing the game in English or Español, since the last bit of Spanish I took was in high school, I decided to reserve the Español version for when I really wanted a challenge.  The game comes with 300 puzzles to challenge, I only wish there was internet access capabilities to download the USA Today daily puzzle to the DS for new challenges.

The Across and Down clues appear on the upper screen with faux USA Today articles on the right side to give the illusion that you’re working the puzzle in an actual paper.  On the lower touch screen you have your Word Grid and Option Keys.  The stylus is used to select the spaces on the grid and the clues for those spaces appear on the upper screen.  You can use the + Control Pad to toggle between Across and Down.  The L and R Buttons allow you to move from one clue to the next, reverse and forward, respectively.

Letters are inputted using a Handwriting Space or the optional Qwerty Keyboard.  Letters can be written in either Ink or Pencil; I should note that everything has to be in Ink for the timer to stop and the game to end.  There is an eraser function (works on Ink) along with undo and redo capabilities.  Finally, the screen can be switched to list view so that you can see all of the clues in one go, thus allowing you to pick out and fill in the easy ones first.

When you begin, a puzzle a timer starts.  When you have completed the puzzle in Ink, the timer stops.  A better option would have been to have a Stop Button, thus allowing one to check for any mistakes before stopping the time.  Any incorrect letters are pointed out to you and you are given the option to correct your mistakes (30 seconds are added to your time per letter), seeing the correct letters, or quitting the puzzle without seeing the correct letters.  Based on your completion of the puzzle and your time, you are giving a score for the challenge.

Down

The first thing I did when playing the game was turn off the volume, the music and constant beeping every time I chose to use the stylus got really annoying rather quickly.  The Word Grid is too large for the display, so you have to move it around.  You do this by selecting one of the blue squares (represented by the color black in the newspaper version) with the stylus and dragging it to move the Word Grid around.  This works half of the time and thus causes a great deal of frustration. 

The selected squares for a clue highlight in a very light yellow tint on the white background of the Word Grid, thus making it very hard to see under certain lighting conditions.  Highlighting in blue would have been a far better choice.  Toggling back and forth between Across and Down can be rather frustrating with the stylus, I recommend using the + Control Pad. 

Like most electronic versions, hints for clues can be given one letter at a time, costing you a penalty of one minute.  Under Options, you can also set the game to reveal mis-played letters at the cost of 30 seconds per mistake.  Being old school, I try not to give into these options.

Inputting letters using the Handwriting Space is straightforward, except when it comes to the letter “I” which is a vertical line with a dot on top and the letter “T” which is a vertical line followed by a horizontal line.  If you don’t scrawl the dot or horizontal line fast enough, you are left with an “L.” Using the Qwerty Keyboard is only slightly better.

Finally, like most electronic versions of crossword puzzles, this one leapfrogs over the letters you have already entered.  This can cause problems if you don’t keep and eye on it.  For example, say the answer for 2 Down is IMAGES and the clue for 14 Across is “South Pacific” Hero and you have _ M _ _ _. If you are not careful, due to letter leapfrogging, you can end up with EMMIL instead of EMILE.  The only reason this is an issue is because the area where you are inputting letters is not the Word Grid itself, so mistakes can be made if you don’t pay attention.  The upshot of this is always check your work.

Overall Impression

The thing that really hurts this game is its user interface.  The puzzles are fun and challenging, it’s just that trying to move around and enter text into the Word Grid became so frustrating that it really made me long for my newspaper and pencil.  So I’m afraid I have to give it a pitiful 3 Dancing Elephants out of 8.

Parting Thoughts

Crossword puzzles can be tricky sometimes, then there are times when you can over-think a clue or mistake a noun for a verb… The clue for the 4-letter word ending in “D” was “Produce skin” and the answer was not SHED, nor was it BARE before I got the “D”.