Localcross turns your news stories into a daily puzzle — and the clues link back to your articles, so readers dig into your reporting to solve it. More pageviews, more recirculation, more signups. We host it, we run it, and the game's ads pay you a share — never a cut of your own ad revenue. You paste one line of code.
Your readers want a reason to return every day — and hard news alone rarely gives them one. The big papers figured this out: a daily game turns casual readers into loyal ones, lengthens visits, and opens a new revenue line. But building and running games takes a team and a tech stack most newsrooms don't have. So the habit your readers crave gets built somewhere else — and they go play it there.
No developer. No puzzle construction. No servers. We handle all of it.
Pull stories automatically from your feed — by the categories you choose, daily, weekly, or monthly — or hand-pick the articles you want featured.
AI finds the thread across your stories, balances easy-to-hard clues so every article is represented, and QA's it for accuracy. You paste one line of code to embed it.
Clues link back to your articles, so players dig into your reporting for the answers — driving pageviews, recirculation, and email signups.
Every puzzle mixes three kinds of clues — words from the headline (easy), from inside the article (medium), and related but not stated (hard) — so every difficulty pulls readers deeper into your coverage.
Most games pull readers away from your stories. Localcross does the opposite. Because the puzzle is built from your articles and the clues link back to them, players read your reporting to solve it — turning a five-minute game into pageviews, recirculation, and longer sessions. Every play is a doorway back into your journalism.
Capture emails and newsletter signups as people play — building the first-party audience every publisher is fighting for.
Made from your own coverage, every puzzle is inherently your community and your voice — never a generic syndicated grid.
Your own pageview and ad lift, newsletter growth, a share of the game's ads, and a sponsor slot you can sell.
It pays you on more than one front. The recirculation drives your own pageviews and ad revenue. The email capture grows your newsletter. The game itself runs unobtrusive ads, and we pay you a share — a check every month (your own site's ad revenue stays entirely yours). And your daily puzzle is premium, high-attention space, perfect for a local sponsor: selling a single rotating sponsorship can cover your subscription many times over.
Puzzles generated from your own articles — auto from your feed or stories you pick.
Readers dig into your reporting to solve — driving pageviews and recirculation.
Easy, medium, and hard clues keyed to how deep the answer sits in the story.
Collect emails and newsletter signups as people play.
We run unobtrusive ads in the game and send you a share every month — never a cut of your own ad revenue. Plus a sponsor slot you can sell.
We run everything on our servers. You paste one embed — no developer needed.
You don't have a games team. You don't need one. We turn your own stories into a daily crossword, host it, and run it — you paste one line of code, and every morning your readers play a puzzle that sends them straight back into your reporting.
Your daily puzzle is built from your own coverage, and its clues pull players into your articles — more pageviews, longer sessions, more recirculation, more emails on your list. A new revenue line (we pay you a share of the game's ads), plus a sponsor slot you can sell — and full control of your ad stack.
The national papers built habit businesses on games. Yours can too — built from your journalism, driving recirculation across your site, and growing the first-party audience you care about most. Fully managed, priced like a partner, not an enterprise contract.
| Localcross | Typical alternatives | |
|---|---|---|
| Built from your stories | Yes — every puzzle | Rarely, or generic |
| Sends readers into your articles | Yes — clues link to your reporting | No |
| Grows your audience | Email & newsletter capture | No |
| Revenue to you | Pageview lift + a share of the game's ads + sponsor | Usually none |
| Pricing | Flat, from $25/mo | $49–$400/mo, often + setup |
| Surprise bills | Never | Per-play overage charges |
Flat monthly plans, sized to your audience, plus a custom tier for groups. No setup fee. No per-play charges. No surprise bills — ever. And the game's ads pay you a share — we never touch your own ad revenue.
Networks & groups — multi-property publishers and the truly large get custom pricing and white-glove onboarding. Let's talk.
Want to run your own ads? Full ad control — keep our programmatic (and the share we pay you) or switch it off for your own stack — is included on Regional and up. Selling your own sponsor slot is available on every plan.
Prefer to pay yearly? Choose annual billing and get two months free.
Start free for 14 days. No credit card. No setup fee. Cancel anytime.