I got this as a lark when I got my kids their DS system. I figured since I was shelling out all this money for them, I might as well get myself something. This has turned out to be the best Christmas present I have gotten myself in several years.
The interface is very intuitive. You can zoom or shrink the size of the puzzle to four different sizes, so you will be able to find the size that you like best, or switch around between a few as you complete the puzzle. You are timed as you complete the puzzle, so I am always trying to get a record time on the Monday puzzles, etc.
There are also hints, so if you are stumped, you can ask for a letter. When you're all done, (or the boxes are all filled) the puzzle will circle any incorrect answers and let you fill them in correctly. You are penalized with additional time added to your "score" if you use the hints.
The puzzles themselves are the same ones as the ones in the paper, so they are organized by difficulty according to the day. I think there are about a thousand puzzles in the game, so this will last awhile...
If you complete a whole week of puzzles (Monday through Sunday) you will unlock a super bonus puzzle - an extra big sunday sized (or bigger) puzzle. That is fun!
I have had to make some minor adjustments to how I write in the letters - for some reason if I start a capital g from the inside and go out (clockwise) it will recognize it as an o no matter how many times I re-do it. But if I start on the outside and go counter-clockwise it will recognize it with no trouble, even though the end result is identical. Kind of weird. It will recognize both capital and lower case letters, and it suggests that it will "learn" to recognize capital letters the more you use them. Maybe. All I know is that I cannot get it to recognize a capital H unless I make two vertical lines and just barely cross the second one. But this isn't really an issue, as it will recognize a lower case one almost no matter how messily you write it. It's just fun to mess around with stuff like this - seriously, it's not a negative in the least.
I really can't recommend this highly enough. It's so cool that I would buy a DS and this game just to do crosswords. Now I have to fight my kids for one of the DS's unless it's after bedtime (we have two DS's and four kids), so I just might do it anyway...









