How to Play the LinkedIn Puzzle Game “Crossclimb”

I’m pretty sure that we’ve had word puzzles and games as long as we’ve had spoken language. Some of the classics are still popular too, from Hangman to Word Search to Crossword Puzzles. And who can forget Scrabble, Boggle, and other games that you might well have sitting on your game shelf right now!

But things have expanded quite a bit with the rise of casual games in the online era. Words with Friends was a huge hit a few years ago and Wordle remains a top draw for the New York Times games area. My favorite NYT game remains Strands, however. Here’s how to play this fun daily wordsearch puzzle.

Add wordgames in the various app stores and there are probably thousands of variations on the theme. While many are based on “here are letters, what words can you make” and “here’s a clue, a known length, and a letter or two, what fits”, another theme that’s interesting is known as word ladder.

The idea of a word ladder is to build a sequence of words where each varies from the previous by a single letter. CAT -> CAR -> BAR -> BAG -> RAG -> RUG would be a very simple journey from CAT to RUG.

Word ladders are the foundation of the LinkedIn puzzle Crossclimb, but rather than start out with the first word, you actually are trying to figure out the middle words, then are given clues for the first and last word. Guess everything correctly and you win!

You can find the game at linkedin.com/games/crossclimb…

HOW TO PLAY CROSSCLIMB

Go to the page and the splash screen welcomes you with an update on your latest streak:

When you’re ready to give it a whirl, click on “Start game“. It goes straight into the game…

The puzzle board is presented thusly:

There’s a clue at the bottom of the screen – “Musical groups” – and we’re trying to guess a five letter word that means what the clue indicates. This one’s easy: BANDS. Enter those letters and it’ll move to the next line:

This one’s a bit trickier because there are multiple five-letter words that mean “Supports financially, as a startup”. I’m going to guess “FUNDS” since it’s so close to BANDS, but, as you’ll see, it’s the wrong answer!

I’m on the fourth line, and notice that there’s no indication that my second guess is wrong. An important part of any puzzle is for you to be able to spot errors and try to fix them! 🙂

The fourth clue is “Places to make withdrawals or deposits”. Five letters. BANKS. Also pretty easy.

REORDER, FIX ERRORS, AND SOLVE IT!

Once you have entries for all five of the middle elements of this word ladder, you need to click and drag the double-line “handles” to reorder the lines so that the ladder works:

This is when “FUNDS” becomes an obvious error since it’s not one letter away from any of the other words on the list. You can click on the line and try another answer if you want, but if you’re stuck, Crossclimb is generous with its clues and hints. When I click on the “Hint” button, it highlights the one that’s wrong:

Usually knowing which line is wrong is plenty of clue to identify the correct answer, but you can also choose “Reveal row” if you’re otherwise drawing a complete blank. Me? I puzzle out that the word must begin with a “B”…

I can again click on “Hint” to confirm I got it right – “BACKS” – but I can also see that it fits into the ladder. Once they’re in order, the top and bottom entries unlock!

The two clues are mixed together to make it a bit harder, but one is “sweets that trick-or-treaters collect” and the other is “bags that they might collect sweets in.” They are still part of the word ladder, of course, so the first has to be within a single letter of BACKS, while the last within one of HANDY.

Got ’em figured out?

Once you enter the correct words for the top and bottom spaces, you’ve solved the puzzle!

Fun, easy, straightforward, and I expect most people solve this within 3-4 minutes. Perfect for while you’re enjoying the first few sips of that dangerously hot latte!

A FEW SETTINGS AND PREFERENCES

While you’re on the puzzle page, don’t forget to click on “Settings” on the top right. There aren’t a lot of options you can tweak, but they can make for a more enjoyable game:

You can see what I like to disable – I really dislike timed puzzles because they stress me out! – so set these for your own preference. While you’re here, click on “Who can see if you played” too:

I certainly don’t mind my connections knowing that I spent a few minutes on a game, but if you’d rather have it not be part of your persona on LinkedIn, you can change that too. And that’s it.

Welcome to Crossclimb, now go try it for yourself: Go Play Crossclimb!

Pro Tip: I’ve been a gamer and puzzle solver forever and am always interested in learning about new games. I’m also a board game fan and review them over on my PlanetDave site too. Check it out: board game reviews. Thanks!