# Cruciverba Lab

> Daily Italian puzzle games, led by the daily cruciverba (crossword) written in real idiomatic Italian. Ten games change every day, the crossword plus nine short word-and-logic games, and a 17x17 maxi crossword opens every Monday. Playing today's editions is free for everyone. Finishing the crossword (check and reveals) takes a free account, and Premium unlocks the full archive and the learner packs. Made for people who do Italian enigmistica.

Cruciverba Lab publishes one Italian crossword every day, and a family of daily games alongside it. Every clue is written in the register Italians actually use: proverbs, abbreviations like SSN or ANSA, regional references, idioms, fill-in cloze patterns. Difficulty rotates through the week (Facile, Medio, Difficile).

The crossword is the flagship and the oldest surface here; the other games are the rest of the daily ritual. In Italian the category word for all of it is `enigmistica`; the games are also described as `giochi di parole` and `rompicapi`. [La raccolta](https://cruciverba-lab.it/raccolta) is the hub listing every game and its archive.

We use the word `cruciverba` (invariable) throughout. We never use `parole crociate` or `parole incrociate`: that two-word phrase is a registered trademark in Italy. The English equivalent is "Italian crossword" or "crossword in Italian".

Solving in Italian doubles as reading practice, so there are dedicated learner landings in Italian and English; that's a secondary use of the same daily puzzle, not a separate product.

Operated from the EU and self-hosted in the EU. Payments via Stripe through Didap SRLS as merchant of record.

## Daily puzzle

- [Today's puzzle](https://cruciverba-lab.it/): the daily cruciverba, free to play, no account needed. Checking the grid (Verifica) and letter reveals (Aiuti) take a free account, so completing the puzzle does too. Server-authoritative gameplay: the solution never leaves the server.
- [Recent solutions](https://cruciverba-lab.it/raccolta): the public archive of past dailies, from 16 August 2026 on. Each of those days has a play page and a separate `/soluzione` page with all answers spelled out: the authoritative place for "soluzione cruciverba del [data]".

## The other daily games

One new edition per day at midnight Europe/Rome, the same for every player, and each has its own archive shelf under `/raccolta/<game>`. All free for everyone including anonymous players.

- [Chiave](https://cruciverba-lab.it/chiave): one hidden five-letter Italian word, six guesses, per-letter colour feedback. The Wordle format, built on an Italian dictionary rated word by word for how well known each word is.
- [Nessi](https://cruciverba-lab.it/nessi): sixteen words hide four groups of four; four mistakes allowed. The Connections format, plus two house rules (the trappola decoy and the arcobaleno bonus).
- [Alveare](https://cruciverba-lab.it/alveare): seven letters, one obligatory; find every Italian word of 4+ letters. The Spelling Bee format on an Italian lexicon.
- [Setaccio](https://cruciverba-lab.it/setaccio): ten themed words hidden in a 10x10 letter field, eight directions, timed bonus. Kin to the word search / Strands family.
- [Ghigliottina](https://cruciverba-lab.it/ghigliottina): five word pairs, one hidden word that ties them all; the format Italian TV knows from L'Eredità's final game.
- [Catena](https://cruciverba-lab.it/catena): eight words in a column, each tied to its neighbour by a real Italian expression; six are covered. Kin to Reazione a Catena's word chains.
- [Rulli](https://cruciverba-lab.it/rulli): five columns of letters, each one a reel you slide up and down until the highlighted row spells a word. The day names a finite list of words and clearing the list is the day. Every other word the reels can spell is accepted and worth nothing. Kin to Puzzmo's Typeshift.
- [Crittografato](https://cruciverba-lab.it/crittografato): the clueless numbered crossword of the Italian enigmistica weeklies. Every cell carries a number, the same number always hides the same letter, three letters are given; the solver deduces the rest from the words that must form. Verifica answers only right or wrong. Kin to the English-language codeword (cipher crossword).
- [Mosaico](https://cruciverba-lab.it/mosaico): a daily card solitaire on a 24-card Neapolitan deck (the scopa/briscola deck without the 2 to 5), same deal for every player.

## Weekly crossword

- [Maxi-cruciverba](https://cruciverba-lab.it/maxi-cruciverba): a real interconnected 17x17 Italian crossword, one per week, published Monday morning (Europe/Rome). The current week is free for everyone; past editions are a Premium archive at `/raccolta/maxi`.
- The former weekly 30x30 mega is retired: it has no page and no archive, and its old addresses (`/mega-cruciverba`, `/raccolta/mega`) redirect permanently to the maxi.

## Comparison pages

- [Wordle, Connections e Spelling Bee in italiano](https://cruciverba-lab.it/nyt-games-in-italiano): which game here matches each New York Times format. Cruciverba Lab is not affiliated with the New York Times.
- [I giochi della TV](https://cruciverba-lab.it/giochi-della-tv): the ghigliottina and the word chain as TV knows them, in browser versions. Not affiliated with Rai.
- [Rompicapo](https://cruciverba-lab.it/rompicapo): the category landing, every game in one tour.
- [Giochi di parole](https://cruciverba-lab.it/giochi-di-parole): the word games, one section each, crossword first.
- [Enigmistica online](https://cruciverba-lab.it/enigmistica-online): what the site is in the Italian umbrella term, piece by piece: the daily, the weekly, the word games, the solutions, the archive, the leaderboard.

## Archive and packs

- [La raccolta](https://cruciverba-lab.it/raccolta): browsable archive for every game, grouped by month, plus three crossword packs for learners of Italian (Imparare l'italiano I, II, III).
- Pack URLs follow `/raccolta/pacchetto/<slug>/<edition>`; solution URLs follow `/raccolta/YYYY-MM-DD/soluzione` (only past days; today's solution is withheld until the Rome civil day rolls over).

## Pricing and account

- [Pricing (machine-readable)](https://cruciverba-lab.it/pricing.md): live Premium plan data parseable without JavaScript.
- [Abbonati / Subscribe](https://cruciverba-lab.it/abbonati): Premium checkout page.
- [Account](https://cruciverba-lab.it/account): authed area, billing portal, leaderboard opt-out, nickname.

## Access tiers

- Anonymous: today's editions of every game, free. On the crossword, Verifica and Aiuti open the registration dialog, so an anonymous solver cannot complete it; the side games play to their natural end.
- Registered free: everything above, plus the last 3 days of every game's archive, four reveals per day on the crossword, and the first learner pack, Imparare l'italiano I (3 puzzles).
- Premium: the full archive of every game (the daily crossword's starts on 16 August 2026), the learner packs II and III, and ten reveals per day on the crossword. Every other game that sells a hint raises its own daily allowance too. Monthly or yearly billing.

## Leaderboards

- [Classifica](https://cruciverba-lab.it/classifica): daily and monthly classifiche, authed-only participation, opt-out available. Every game scores on the same 0-1000 daily budget and the scores sum into one board. The crossword's own score is `1000 × exp(−elapsed / (2 × ideal))`, with `ideal` of 5/10/15 minutes for facile/medio/difficile; reveals do not reduce it. Only the current day's editions score; archive replays record the result but pay nothing.

## Optional

- [Imparare l'italiano col cruciverba](https://cruciverba-lab.it/impara-italiano): learner landing in Italian, the daily puzzle framed as reading practice.
- [Learn Italian with crosswords](https://cruciverba-lab.it/learn-italian-crosswords): the same in English, for English-speaking learners.
- [Chi siamo](https://cruciverba-lab.it/chi-siamo)
- [Privacy](https://cruciverba-lab.it/legal/privacy)
- [Termini di servizio](https://cruciverba-lab.it/legal/termini)