Digital Marmalade deliver Times 'Quick Cryptic' web crossword

Digital Marmalade has been working with News (UK) for the last year, initially developing a digital solution for the world famous Times Crossword and we have now gone live with a new puzzle type, Quick Cryptic. 

The initial crossword development included the creation of a bespoke CMS with specifically designed work flows resulting in fully responsive HMTL5. This has since evolved into a specific Mobile App development piece, and now extended into 10 different digital puzzles which cover the paper’s entire daily output which are due to go live in their entirety in summer 2014.

For the implementation of Quick Cryptic we were working to a turnaround time of only 10 days. We needed to use the existing CMS to create the web version of the puzzle but also generate a JSON output for use in the existing CMS for Android tablet use.

Along with the turnaround time, other challenges included the requirement for converting an existing XML into a differently formatted one for a different CMS and automating a daily web view for inclusion within The Times content CMS.

Our Quick Cryptic solution refocused the existing solution to engineer the crossword, whilst developing an automated JSON file to deliver the daily secure URL for use within the CMS. Additionally, a JSON XML file is delivered to a specific person who can simply cut and paste into a new CMS. The whole process for a weeks' worth of puzzles takes about 15 minutes from input to creation - all delivered to a much enhanced frontend version of the crossword – timely, efficient and to a higher standard in record time on all devices!

You can play the puzzle now with an existing subscription, or subscribe here:

http://store2.thetimes.co.uk/?ILC=INT-TNL_The_Times-subscribe_butto-TheTimes-6_26_2013_-69