Today’s miniFree to allAbout two minutes

Ducklark Games

Theme Minis

All the puzzles that fit in a square

Today’s miniPrice: one duck

The Mini

A crossword you can finish before your coffee goes cold: that's the idea behind Theme Minis. Each grid is only five or six squares across, and each one hangs on a single subject, so once you know the theme is breakfast, or the beach, or 1980s music, a stubborn clue usually gives itself up. There are 1,015 of them on 29 subjects, from baseball and birds to Halloween, New York and our own Long Island, plus one puzzle each day that everybody gets the same.

The front page is laid out like a little morning newspaper on a garden table, with today's theme as the headline and the mini printed in its box. Roady holds a pencil over the top edge while Tiny and Rusty peek in. While you solve, Tiny sits by the clue and nods each time you fill a word, and on your first puzzle he walks you through it one tip at a time, so it's a gentle start if you've never done a crossword. Check marks wrong letters, Reveal fills a word when you're stuck, and solving the daily on its own day builds a streak. We wrote the theme clues ourselves, out here on Long Island. It's free, it runs in your browser, and there's more in how to play Theme Minis.