UI Refresh: Cleaner Grids, Color Bars, and a Sharper Daily Look

June 21, 2026

We've been hard at work on a pure visual-polish pass across both CrossEights and CrossEights Daily. Nothing about the game logic changed — but the experience looks and feels noticeably cleaner.

Grid & Color Foundations

The puzzle grid got a complete face-lift. We moved to a continuous graph-paper style with 1px borders, transparent blocked corners, and a fresh custom green (#53B037) for solved words with black text instead of white. Letter weight dropped from bold to normal so the grid reads more calmly.

On Daily, we retired the amber gradient page backgrounds in favor of clean white. Amber accents were replaced with a charcoal-navy slate across the entire Daily UI — calmer, more modern, and easier on the eyes.

Bars, Badges, and Endcaps

A slim top color accent bar now sits across the main game pages: blue on the standard site, charcoal-navy on Daily. It’s a small touch, but it anchors the page and gives each mode its own identity.

The "Special Blend" difficulty badge was fixed so it no longer wraps awkwardly, and it now sits cleanly at the bottom of the grid card with extra padding to prevent overlap.

Empty cells got a subtle new background color (#F0F2F4) so the grid has better depth without feeling busy.

Finally, the desktop color bar endcaps were refined. They’re now standalone elements with a smooth 6px top-corner curve — visible at desktop scale without looking pointed or awkward. The center bar stays straight, and the endcaps round off the visual line.

These are small touches, but they add up. The game feels tighter, calmer, and more intentional across every screen size.