Image rights: Red Sweater Software.If crosswords are your thing, Black Ink 2 may
hit the spot. The veteran Mac game has been
updated with its second version, which
brings a number of quality-of-life and
accessibility improvements to the table.
For example, you can have Black Ink 2
highlight incorrect letters as you type them,
giving you a visual indication of where you’ve
gone wrong. There are numerous options for
changing the focus as you enter solutions,
and it even works with macOS’s Dark Mode.
Another welcome change is the fact that
the app is now totally free to play. A number
of premium features are locked behind
a $29.95 paywall, but they’re not necessary
for you to enjoy Black Ink 2. If you do
upgrade, you get a puzzle timer and the
ability to print puzzles, check your answers,
and reveal solutions from within the app.
When you Ľrst load Black Ink 2, you’re
prompted to choose a puzzle from one of
four sources: The Wall Street Journal, The
Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York
Times Premium edition, and the AmericanBlack Ink 2
Solve crosswords on your Mac
Free (IAPs) From Red Sweater Software red-sweater.com
Needs macOS 10.12 or later, 64–bit processorBLACK INK 2
Quality–of–life
improvements
Most features are free
Highly customizable
Adding recurring
puzzle sources is
complicated
GREATValues Club. However, the latter two require
a subscription. If you don’t have one, you can
only load puzzles from the former two from
this menu, which is a minor annoyance.
However, any crossword source that uses
the Across Lite format can be imported into
Black Ink 2 — just download the .puz Ľle and
double click it to open it in the app. This
vastly expands the number of puzzles
available to you; if the puzzle creator added
notes or solutions to the .puz Ľle, Black Ink 2
can read those too.
You can also add a recurring puzzle source,
which lets the app automatically download
new puzzles every time they’re uploaded to
this source. This is a little more complicated,
however, and requires the puzzle to have
a predictable Ľle name (such as one that
contains a date or puzzle number). You then
need to replace these variables with symbols
Black Ink 2 can read and tell it what days new
puzzles are uploaded.
The rest of Black Ink 2 is a well–designed
app that plays nice with macOS. Its quality–
of–life improvements and impressive
number of customization options will be
welcome additions to any puzzle fan.
THE BOTTOM LINE. A great time-sink with
some worthy premium features, but there’s
still room to improve. ALEX BLAKEBlack Ink 2 looks lovely if
you’ve enabled Dark Mode
in macOS.The app can give a visual indication of where you’ve gone
wrong and where you’ve successfully corrected a mistake.
Reviews
46 MAR 2020 maclife.com