Back in the olden days, when people were far away from the greatest invention, the internet, They usually spend their cup of tea time playing offline games like chess, cards, or crosswords.
Although there is no time machine that lets us experience those days. However, you can have those games on your Linux desktop.
Today, you will be introduced to a brand new GNOME crossword puzzle game developed by Jonathan Blandford on Linux.
GNOME Crossword Puzzle in Linux?
Yes, there is an amazing and fun game of crosswords on Linux. In this game, you can either load your crossword files (.ipuz and .puz) or play one of the included games.
First, we will take a look at the features of this game.
- Support for shaped and colored crosswords
- Load local files (
.ipuzand.puz) - Get hints, such as showing mistakes and suggesting words
- Dark mode support
- Locally installed crosswords as well as support for 3rd party downloaders
To install the game, you will need to have Flatpak on your system. If you haven’t installed it yet, then follow our detailed guide on the installation and configuration of Flatpak on Linux.
After the Flatpak is installed on your system, execute the following command to start the installation.
$ flatpak install flathub org.gnome.CrosswordsBelow is the output of the above command.
After the installation is complete, either you can execute the following command.
$ flatpak run org.gnome.CrosswordsOr search for crosswords in the application launcher menu.
Getting Started with Crosswords
When you launch the game for the first time, you will interact with the following interface.
There are a few offline puzzles provided by the game. In addition to that, you can download and play puzzles from popular news outlets like The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, The Guardian Daily, The New Yorker, etc. Or, you can download or create puzzle files in .ipuz and .puz file formats and play your own game.
If you choose the Cats and Dogs section, it will open the local puzzle game that comes with the crosswords.
When you choose a puzzle from a news outlet like The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, The Guardian Daily, The New Yorker, etc., you need to first download the puzzle for the current day.
Note: Currently, some of the puzzles from the news outlet are not being downloaded and are showing errors. The Daily Beast is one of them.
If you missed downloading the puzzle from the news outlet for a specific day, then there is no way to go back and download them. However, the downloaded puzzles will be saved locally and you can play them from there.
While playing the game, if you require any help, press Ctrl+Shift+? keyboard shortcut to open the Help or Shortcut screen.
If you are stuck at some place press the Ctrl+h keyboard shortcut key and it will show you a hint at the bottom of the game as a flash.
While playing the game if you feel tired you can directly close it as it automatically gets saved so you do not have to worry about your changes in the game.
Remove Crosswords
If you don’t like Crosswords and installed it by mistake or don’t want to have it anymore in your system, then follow the below command to kick it out from your system.
$ flatpak uninstall org.gnome.CrosswordsPress ‘Y‘ when you are asked to confirm.
Let’s hold it here, if you have any interesting games in your pocket. Do let us know in the comment section.
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