# Crostics — user reviews > 25 indexed App Store user reviews of Crostics by John Blackburn, rated 4.80/5 from 628 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/crostics/id1204549053/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/crostics/id1204549053.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 506 · 4★ 101 · 3★ 19 · 2★ 0 · 1★ 2 ## What do users think of Crostics? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Clean, intuitive, and modern interface - 🎮 Fun and engaging gameplay mechanics - 💡 Custom keyboard for faster input - 🔇 Minimal, delightful sound effects - ⭐ High-quality puzzle content - 🎯 Smart navigation between clues and quote grid - 🏆 Best crostics game available on mobile - 💰 No forced ads or aggressive monetization - 📱 Easy to jump in and out of puzzles - 🌙 Night mode support **Cons** - 🐛 Occasional freezing and resizing issues - 😴 Repetitive content across 100 levels - ⚠️ Very easy difficulty level - 📏 Shorter puzzles than traditional magazines - 🔤 Unclear multi-word answer formatting - 🎯 Immediate feedback on correct answers (spoils challenge) - 📊 Uneven letter distribution in puzzles - 💸 Expensive puzzle packs ($1.99 for 24 puzzles) **Commonly reported bugs** - App freezes occasionally - Unexpected resizing of interface elements - Delete function requires multiple presses (workaround: long press available) **Most requested features** - More puzzle books and content - Word count indicators in clues (e.g., '2 words', '3 words') - Spaces in clues for multi-word answers - Author attribution guessing feature - Ability to view solved puzzles after completion - Toggle option to disable correct answer notifications - Automatic dark/light mode switching - First letters of clues spelling author names - More challenging and scholarly clues - Bulk delete function for clue answers - Lower pricing for puzzle packs ## Newest reviews (8 of 25) ### 5/5 — Very enjoyable! *2019-03-24* Challenging, but fun! ### 5/5 — More please! *2019-02-17* Love this! I played everyday until..no more puzzles. I really miss it and can’t wait for more to be available. Such a different word game. I love that you can play two ways. Please make more!!! ### 5/5 — Best of Crostics Games *2018-03-09* We’ve played several and this is the best. Another quality game by the developer. We wish there were more to buy. ### 5/5 — Terrific! *2018-02-15* Yay!! More puzzles. I’ve been waiting for this, checking daily. I even replayed previous books in the interim. Thank you John Blackburn. ### 5/5 — Thank you. *2018-02-08, version 1.0* I love this game but new puzzles don't come fast enough! Could probably do another THOUSAND! Thank you so much for this wonderful and exciting game. Coming from a person who loves words and their meanings. ### 5/5 — Love Love Love! *2018-01-24* Why did my previous review disappear?? Have never had that happen That’s really annoying!! Don’t want to retype. Love the beautifully clean interface, fun clues, quotes, and help button right on the keyboard. Can’t remember what else I prev wrote. Just download. I love their other apps although I haven’t tried their one that isn’t free. There’s are one of the only few that I actually buy more puzzles. I did email the authors about needing more puzzles. Am replaying old ones but ready for new ;-). They are very responsive. As I’ve gotten better, my requests aren’t so needed ;-) ### 5/5 — Additional puzzles too expensive *2018-01-08* This is a great app and I really enjoy playing. Most other puzzle apps charge .99 cents for sets of 50 puzzles. $1.99 for only 24 puzzles is too expensive in my opinion. If the price drops, I would buy. **Developer response:** We're to happy to hear you're enjoying the game. Our puzzles are constructed with care and considerable time; unlike many other games that auto-generate games from a word dictionary, these are hand-crafted and painstakingly validated, so we hope you come to appreciate their value! ### 5/5 — Mrs Hiney *2018-01-05* The best iPhone game!!! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 3/5 — Repetitive 2024 *2024-04-22, version 1.3* 100 levels nothing changes. Very easy questions. ### 4/5 — Good, not great *2023-05-08* A lot of fun, definitely the best version of this game I’ve found for mobile. I would like the ability to turn on spaces in the clues instead of having some of the answers be a few words all mashed together. Also it would be fun to get to guess the authors of each quote. More levels would be great too. Good game overall. **Developer response:** Those are two great suggestions! Believe it or not, you're the first to suggest them. Optionally adding spaces between multi-word clues sounds fun, but guessing the authors before seeing their names would *definitely* be fun—thanks! ### 4/5 — Fast Fun *2021-02-09* I found these puzzles easier than others but I really like them. The app has a few quirks, e.g. freezing occasionally, strangely resizing occasionally, but overall I like the way it navigates, especially through the quotation part of puzzle where it automatically moves to the next open square instead of just the next square. I wish it had options, e.g. I'd like to turn off the feature that lets you know you got a clue answer right. For me, it's part of the challenge to let the quotation confirm the accuracy of the clue answers. ### 4/5 — Suggestion *2020-08-18, version 1.2* I really enjoy this, however, it would be helpful to indicate the number of words that are in the answer. ### 4/5 — Nice casual time killer *2019-01-20* This is a good game for killing time. You can jump in and out even in the middle of a puzzle. The user experience is good. I like how easy it is to jump back and forth between puzzles. I don’t lose track of where I am like I do in other word games of this type. It just feels good to play. One temporary announce was having to press delete a bunch of times to clear a word but I see now that you can long press for that. The puzzles themselves are decent though there are some differences if you’re used to the Dell/Penny Press puzzles. They have two letter clues and they’re often easier than they could be (e.g. the state abbreviations). Having two letters from the same clue in the same word in the quote is not allowed in the magazines. The first letters of the clues don’t spell the author and source. And it took a bit for me to realize clues like “helps land airplanes” refer to a person and not an action. I suspect much of this is dictated by the smaller phone screens which would be much harder to manage for the length of puzzle you normally see. Either way, it’s a fun casual game and I’ll be purchasing the puzzle packs shortly. **Developer response:** Thanks for taking the time to leave such a nice review. You are right that many decisions were dictated by the smaller screens. Something fun on larger screens/puzzles turned out to be sometimes less fun on a smaller screen, so we tried to strike a decent balance. Hearing that you've enjoyed the puzzles is gratifying because it means at least some of the design decisions worked. ### 4/5 — Apps are where authentic crostics go to die *2018-09-30* [Dear Developer—I noticed your response late; thanks for it. I acknowledge your points about fitting everything on one screen. Other developers have done this, but their apps are awkward to use and have other problems yours doesn’t. I think your app is the most pleasant to use. Please note I’ve added a nerdy comment below about letter distribution.] With each new crostics app, I’m seeing the original puzzle lose more and more of its form and functions. If I wasn’t still attached to the Thomas Middleton crostics from back in the day, I’d probably be giving more stars. With this app, I’d like to see the clues and quote grid on the same page (perhaps the letters don’t need to be as large as they are). I don’t want to be told explicitly and immediately when I’ve answered a clue correctly—that’s cheating. (Maybe that could be a settable feature.) I suppose I should give up on the feature where the first letter of each clue spells the author’s name and possibly the name of the quote. I wouldn’t mind some more scholarly-type clues referencing for instance history, literature, etc. Including some more challenging puzzles might be nice. Note to the developer: this is my second edit. Another comment: letters from the quote should be distributed randomly among the clues. You are winding up with many letters in a quote word all being in the same clue word. When creating the puzzle, you’re filling in the clues more or less “in order”. It undermines the ability to go back and forth and have one mode, quote or clues, inform & disambiguate the other. It defeats the underlying elegance of crostics versus straight crossword puzzles. This is especially problematic when the words involved are short. Spoiler Alert: Have a look at Book 4, Puzzle 11, the last 3-letter word in the quote. There are some very nice things here. The visual design is clean and handsome, the sound effects are perfect, and the navigation is functional and intuitive. When entering letters, I found the back-and-forth between grid and clues fluid and easy. I like the way the app is smart about where the focus is put when entering and deleting letters, although it would be nice to be able to delete all the letters in a clue answer with one action. I like the confetti animation at the end :) Little thing: I’d like to be able to go back and look at a solved puzzle. As it stands now, I can only view the puzzle again after the solution has been cleared. I’m on an iPad. **Developer response:** [Additional response about letter distribution below.] I enjoyed reading your review and appreciate the time and care you devoted to it. It was also pleasing to hear that you've enjoyed aspects of the app; thank you for the kind words.   I struggled to retain the classic puzzle format but, despite my many different design approaches, fitting everything onscreen while 1) keeping the gameplay enjoyable and clear 2) on both iPhone and iPad 3) in both portrait and landscape orientations proved to be beyond my design skills. Perhaps others may solve it yet, but it stumped me.   I found that certain elements of the classic format depend heavily on everything being visible simultaneously as your eye moves among quote and author and clues/answers, and having concluded that everything wouldn't fit onscreen, I scrutinized those elements closely.   Spelling the author's name from the clues' first letters, for instance, turned out to be less satisfying when scrolling up and down through a list of answers trying to make sense of things. It's certainly technically possible, and indeed early on the app supported it, but the fuss of scrolling ultimately drained away much of the added fun of seeing the author's name emerge organically from the answers, and I dropped the feature to keep things light enough to fit into the mobile world--a cruel design taskmaster.   I intend to have more scholarly-type clues in version 2.0 (currently unscheduled).   Your three feature suggestions, all excellent and reasonable, are now on my list of improvements, thank you: • add setting for immediately and automatically declaring an answer correct • Allow deletion of all letters in a clue answer with one tap • Allow viewing of solved puzzles [Added] Regarding letter distribution, I checked to confirm and, yes, the letters are already being randomly distributed when the puzzles are created, but it does look like it could be improved further. I believe that the issue you cite appears most frequently in shorter quotes broken into fewer words. While checking I discovered a few ways I can improve the randomization still further and have noted these in my improvements list as well, so thank you for that! ### 4/5 — Fun, but... *2018-04-30* I loved being able to play one of my favorite word puzzles as an app! I was mostly pleased, but I wish that the clues said when it was more than a word (2 words) (3 words) etc... I also prefer longer puzzles, but that’s not a huge deal. **Developer response:** We debated whether or not to say "(2 words)" and, in the end, thought briefer was better on the small phone screens. But perhaps we should offer it as an option? Glad to hear you're enjoying the game! ### 5/5 — Good, not great *2024-03-25* A lot of fun, definitely the best version of this game I’ve found for mobile. I would like the ability to turn on spaces in the clues instead of having some of the answers be a few words all mashed together. Also it would be fun to get to guess the authors of each quote. More levels would be great too. Good game overall. **Developer response:** Those are two great suggestions! Believe it or not, you're the first to suggest them. Optionally adding spaces between multi-word clues sounds fun, but guessing the authors before seeing their names would *definitely* be fun—thanks! ### 5/5 — Thank you for the simple app! *2023-08-19* Challenging enough, simple platform with no ads to “force” someone to purchase for relief. I never purchase, but did on this one :) why? Because I wanted to due to the fact I enjoyed myself and the app. Thank you. Hopefully more books after the 8 packs of 24 I bought. If not, I’m satisfied with my experience. Kudos to the developer! ### 5/5 — Old mate *2021-11-25, version 1.3* What a surprise ! I find this game a hidden gem. Call it trivia, general knowledge, what ever. For me, it keeps you thinking with questions that are sometimes unknown but it keeps you on your toes. Well done to the developers but don’t rest on your laurels - thanks ## Most praised reviews (7 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Wish there were more *2021-04-17* I greatly enjoy doing these puzzles. I wish there were more to buy. **Developer response:** Glad you're enjoying the game. Shorter quotes are sometimes harder to make into puzzles, so perhaps we end up making them too hard. We'll keep this in mind when making future (shorter) puzzles, thank you! ### 5/5 — Will there be Book10? *2020-11-18* More books, please! Very easy to read. I use night mode. This app is best and my favorite. Looking forward to getting more new books. **Developer response:** Just released four new books this week! ### 5/5 — Custom keyboard is great, could use auto light/dark mode switch *2020-07-14* Custom keyboard is great. I can type faster with fewer mistakes with author’s custom keyboard than Apple’s original keyboard. Author John is responsive and polite. Clues are a good mix of easy and hard. Interface is a joy to use: both modern and easy to tap. Sound effects are minimal and delightful - never getting old. Happily paid the $9.99 for the additional 192 puzzles. What a great game. Only nitpick: could use automatic dark/light mode switcher. ### 5/5 — More? *2020-07-12* I have finished Books 1 to 5. Are there more puzzles after the 5th book? I have enjoyed the ones that I have done. **Developer response:** Yes, expect more books soon. It's great to hear you've enjoyed them so far, thanks! ### 5/5 — Love this! *2020-06-08* Great game; challenging and fun. ### 5/5 — Extremely Addictive! *2020-05-18* Hoping there are more books of games to come soon. Thoroughly enjoying this app. Very easy to play - but very challenging as well. ### 5/5 — Absorbing and clever. *2020-04-04* A What a great way to pass the time! great way to pass time and forget aboutWhat a great way to spend the time --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-18.*