About Puzzle Pastime

What this site is

Puzzle Pastime publishes six free puzzles every day — a themed word search, a five-clue mini crossword, sudoku in two gentle strengths, a nostalgia trivia quiz, a memory match, and Yesteryear, our own guess-the-year game. Everything is large print, nothing has a timer, nothing needs an account or an app, and the daily puzzles are free to play and to print. It is made in Britain, with its heart somewhere between the kettle and the crossword.

Our editorial stance: puzzles, not medical claims

Plenty of “brain training” products promise that puzzles will protect memory or delay decline. We make no such claims. What we say is simpler and honest: puzzles are an enjoyable way to spend time genuinely engaged, and enjoyable engagement is a fine thing in anyone’s day. Our guides about dementia, stroke recovery and unsteady hands describe comfort and accessibility only — never therapy. Where a page touches on health, it says plainly that a GP, occupational therapist or care team are the right people to ask about an individual’s needs.

How the puzzles are made

The word search, sudoku and memory decks are generated fresh each day by our own tested generators. The crossword clues, trivia questions and Yesteryear history clues are written and fact-checked by hand — every trivia answer and every Yesteryear clue is a well-established, verifiable fact, because a wrong answer in a trivia game for people who remember the events first-hand is unforgivable. Answers for every past day live in our answers archive.

Design principles

• Large print everywhere — with text-size buttons to make it larger still
• No timers, no penalties, no scores against strangers
• No account, no app, no downloads — the puzzles just play
• Gentle by default: forwards-only word searches, genuinely easy sudoku, definition-only crossword clues
• Print-friendly: a free weekly large-print pack for paper solvers, care homes and community groups

Get in touch

Questions, corrections, or a puzzle suggestion? Use the contact page — corrections are especially welcome; if we’ve got a fact wrong, we want to fix it.