Tips for using the New York Times Crossword Puzzles for Kindle - UPDATE

THE NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLES

Released December 21, there are four sets for Kindle now from which to choose:
Vol. 1   30 World Famous Easy Puzzles
Vol. 2   90 World Famous Easy Puzzles
Vol. 3   30 World Famous Challenging Puzzles
Vol. 4   90 World Famous Challenging Puzzles

  Current pricing is $1.99 for each 30-puzzle set and $4.99 for a set with 90-puzzles.

As NY Times regulars know, the crossword puzzles that come out on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are easier to do.

By the end of each week, on Thursday and Friday, they get very 'challenging' (and I'm already challenged by the "easy" ones).

Of interest to me was that the larger set of 90-puzzles, Vol. 2 (probably chosen by crossword puzzle enthusiasts), has received 4 reviews, all 5-stars though they note the slowness of navigation.

  The smaller, 30-puzzle Vol.1 has more reviews, but they're quite mixed, with most liking it very much but not liking at all the lag time involved in the navigation of the puzzle, due to the clues-text changing with each cursor up/down and across.  The text has to change on the sides and at the bottom because the text shown is tied to the cell, column, and row that your cursor is in and it gives you new information with each movement to another cell.

  It seems to me that the programmers (who otherwise did a great job with this) could hold off on changing the surrounding text until a certain amount of time after a pause.  It'd be better if no surrounding text is changed until the player actually stops moving the cursor (whatever calculation would be involved).  It would also help battery drain also, since there'd be fewer page changes.

  In reading the reviews for both "easy" sets, I saw that those who chose the 90-puzzle set are, on the whole, happier, maybe because they show more evidence of having read the "Instructions" and "Options" and can use, among other features, the "Jump" method to get around more easily.  Also, they're probably more motivated.

  The Kindle's Menu button is used for quite a few help options.
      There's another important key though which gives direct access
        to game "Options," a choice too far down on the Menu button.


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