A Bigger Reward for Smart Solving: Introducing the Insight Bonus

At the heart of CrossEights is a simple idea: you don't need every letter to know a word. A few crossing letters, a bit of pattern recognition, and the right answer clicks into place. We've always loved that moment, but until now the scoring did not fully capture it. A solve that falls into place from three letters is a very different thing from a solve that only happens after you have revealed most of the word.

The new Insight Bonus is our way of closing that gap.

How it works

Every time you complete a word, we look at how many letters were already revealed at that moment and award a per-word bonus based on that count. The fewer letters revealed, the bigger the bonus. The peak is 10 points, awarded when you solve a word with exactly three letters visible. That is the sweet spot where two good crossings usually let a careful solver deduce the answer, without being so easy that a lucky guess would be over-rewarded.

The bonus tiers are:

  • 3 revealed letters: 10 points
  • 4 revealed letters: 6 points
  • 5 revealed letters: 3 points
  • 6 revealed letters: 1 point
  • 7 revealed letters: 0 points

A word solved with only one or two letters visible earns no bonus, because rewarding that would encourage using outside help rather than insight. 3 letters revealed is the point at which careful thinking can and should be rewarded.

Why we made the change

The lead reason is to reward insightful play. We want the leaderboard to celebrate players who read the grid carefully, who notice how an across word locks in a down word, and who complete the puzzle with less hand-holding. Your final score should tell a richer story: not just how fast you were or how many hints you saved, but how well you reasoned from the crossings.

How it fits with the rest of scoring

In Daily and Rival modes, the core scoring rules still apply. You earn 5 points for each letter you solve yourself, 1 point for each hinted letter, and 10 points for each unused hint. Daily puzzles also keep their speed bonus for finishing faster than the difficulty-specific median time. The Insight Bonus stacks on top of these, so the same solve can score very differently depending on how insightfully you worked through it.

For the full scoring breakdown, see the How to Play page.

What this means for your next puzzle

Your next Daily or Rival game is a chance to chase the Insight Bonus. Resist the urge to hint every letter. Study the crossings. See if you can lock in a word with only two or three letters visible. That is the kind of solve we built this for.

Happy solving.