A desk with an open anatomy textbook, a lamp and a printed crossword

Retain more,
stress less.

TickWords reads your chapters, finds the key terminology, and creates a crossword you can play or print. No cloud service or AI subscription required.

Do a crossword and get in some revision without the stress.

$24.99 USD once. No subscription. Windows, Linux and SteamOS.
400+

crosswords ready to play, with 12,000 clues written for them

2.7M

terms in the dictionary, with 11.4 million clues behind them

6 hrs

of study music, 150 tracks, made to sit under your reading

0

cloud accounts, uploads or language models. It runs on your machine

Play, learn, remember

Turn the chapter you have to learn, into a crossword you want to finish.

Comprehensive fact mining software that runs on your own PC. No subscription, no AI.

01

Import

Load a PDF, docx, ePub, LaTeX or plain text file.

The material stays on your computer, and is processed faster than an AI service can do it.

02

Generate

The word extraction is flexible.

  • Create crosswords using the concepts explained.
  • Pick out words that are hard to spell.
  • Focus on jargon and uncommon vocabulary.
03

Play, or print

Play the game, with hints and multiple clues.

Print it out and do it on the train or the bus, or just take a digital detox.

Share the puzzles with friends, or export images you can post in Discord.

04

Remember

A revision crossword feature lets you revisit the words you skipped, flagged or got wrong.

Spaced repetition replays the difficult words with different clues, timed to when you would otherwise forget them.

A crossword being solved, with the full clue list down the right hand side

Playing with clues

Every screenshot and clip is in the screenshot gallery, the gameplay gallery and the print and export gallery.

See it running

Game trailer

See the software in action. It is a polished, careful game built for quiet study sessions, and very different from the noisy edutainment that is neither fun nor educational. There are no levels to chase and no rewards to collect, so you can just concentrate on your study.

Press and media kit Logos, screenshots, key art and a fact sheet, all cleared for use. You can also download the trailer.

Nothing to import

Over 400 crosswords included.

Anatomy, accounting, aerospace, ancient history, architecture, and onward. Written and checked, sorted by subject, ready the moment you install. Twelve thousand clues across them.

Behind that sits a dictionary of 2.7 million terms and 11.4 million clues. It is an impressive collection of human knowledge, sourced legally without web scraping, book harvesting or AI generation.

The TickWords library on a fresh install, crosswords listed by subject
A TickWords crossword printed on A4 paper, with across and down clues below the grid
Printed, A4
A TickWords crossword exported as a high resolution image with an aurora background
Image export
A TickWords crossword exported as a high resolution image with a warm paper crane background
Image export

Click the stack to turn a page

Paper still works

Print it out, do it on the train, share it with friends.

Print to paper or to PDF. It is a good way to take a digital detox.

You can also export high quality images suitable for sharing on social media. If you are a teacher, they make good laminated activity sheets.

See more printouts and exports

Nothing to import, nothing to prepare

Create a random crossword on any subject.

Search by tags such as geology, pharmacology or Shakespearean, and the dictionary tells you how many terms match. Set spelling difficulty, word rareness and how many words you want, then generate. A fresh crossword, drawn from 2.7 million terms and the 11.4 million clues written for them.

  • Combine tags to study multiple subjects
  • Difficulty settings that carry you from high school to university
  • Never the same grid twice, so it stays fresh and challenging

Useful when you have twenty minutes and no chapter in front of you.

The random crossword dialog: a geology tag, the matching record count, and sliders for spelling difficulty, word rareness and number of words

Six hours of study music.

A hundred and fifty tracks across fifteen albums, composed by Joel Steudler. The game lets you choose study soundtracks from lo-fi, solo piano, acoustic guitar, ambient and zen.

Natural language processing versus AI

Compared to a cloud based AI service

We do not push an anti-AI stance. We simply have a better, faster and cheaper product without generative AI, so we use the right tool for the job.

TickWords
AI flash card generators
What it costs
$24.99 USD, paid once
A monthly fee, for as long as you study
Where your materials go
Nowhere. They are read on your own machine
Uploaded to somebody else's servers
Where the clues come from
A dictionary of 11.4 million written clues, tested for correctness before it shipped
Generated per request, often using the cheapest model that passes muster
Storage
Crosswords sync to your Steam Cloud and stay safe for when you need them again. Steam version only.
Access ends when you stop paying
Privacy
We cannot see your source materials
Covered by a policy document too long to read, that changes every few months

Why it costs what it costs

It is priced so a high school student can justify it out of their own money, and still be using it in their final year of university. My business model is not the bank accounts of concerned parents.

Educational software usually positions itself as being cheaper than a private tutor, and prices accordingly, because it knows a parent will pay for results. This is a fraction of that, with no monthly fee, because the student is our customer.

It is not gamified homework and it is not a substitute for a teacher. There is no classroom licence for the same reason: a crossword is a tool that helps a student organise and perform, not a way to buy back contact hours.

It sells on Steam because the refund policy is generous and the regional pricing is equitable, which keeps it affordable for students all over the world.

Dr Warren Creemers, former lecturer and developer

Read the full letter

$24.99USD

once, with regional pricing on Steam

  • No subscription, no ads, no account
  • Windows, Linux and SteamOS, handhelds included
  • Nine import formats, PDF through LaTeX
  • Steam's refund policy applies
Buy on Steam

On a Mac? A macOS build is on the way. Join the newsletter and you will hear the day it lands.

What comes with it

Imports what you already have

PDF, docx, ePub, HTML, Markdown, RTF, ODT, LaTeX and plain text.

Three clue difficulties

The same terms with harder clues, so a chapter is worth revisiting.

Spaced repetition

Revision grids built from what you got wrong, timed to when you would forget it.

Print and PDF export

Clue sheets and answer keys, in a layout meant to be written on.

Runs offline

No account, no upload, no language model. Your notes never leave the machine.

Accessible by default

Colourblind safe palettes, a high contrast mode and dyslexic font support.

Windows, Linux, SteamOS

Handhelds included. One purchase covers every platform, and macOS is coming.

Modern graphics

GLSL shader visuals with quality settings that keep a laptop quiet.

Play, learn, remember.

One purchase, on Steam, with regional pricing,
backed by their generous refund policy.

No subscription. No ads. No account.

Press and media kit

Press kit and branding artwork

Logos, key art, the trailers, every screenshot and a one-page fact sheet, all cleared for editorial use. Review keys on request, and there is a person on the other end of the email rather than a form.

Fact sheet

Developer
Reasonetix, Toowoomba, Australia
Released
Out now on Steam
Platforms
Windows, Linux, SteamOS; macOS in development
Price
$24.99 USD, one purchase
Contact
press@reasonetix.com

Help and community

News on the upcoming macOS version, and new features for history and medical students

Occasional news about upcoming versions and features. We will not share your address, or spam you.

Subscribe to the newsletter Your address is only ever used for this list.

Help centre

Guides for importing notes, creating puzzles, graphics settings and accessibility.

Browse articles

Tutorials

Walkthroughs for the parts of the software that reward a bit of explanation.

Read the tutorials

Discord

Join the community for updates, study tips and somewhere to send feedback.

Join Discord

Report a bug

Found an issue? Tell us about it and we will get it fixed.

Report a bug