Baby shower crosswords: the civilised shower game
A shower game with no melted chocolate, no timers and nothing anyone has to hold.
Why a crossword rather than the usual
The standard baby shower games ask adults to guess at nappy contents, drink from bottles or race to dress a doll. They are funny once and awkward for anybody who arrived not knowing the room.
A crossword can be played by everyone at once, at their own pace, while the conversation carries on around it. It is also the only game that works if half the guests are on a video call.
Answers that suit the theme
Nursery vocabulary gives you the fill — pram, cot, muslin, colic, rattle, dummy — and the personal answers give it life: the name shortlist, the due date, the nursery colour, the parents' own childhood nicknames.
If the names are still a secret, use the shortlist that got rejected. Guests find that funnier anyway.
How to make your own in about five minutes
Open the builder, type in twelve to twenty answers — single words work best, and names are fine — then write a short clue for each one. If a clue is not coming, the clue helper will suggest one you can edit rather than accept wholesale, which is usually the faster route.
The grid arranges itself around your words, and you can reshuffle the layout until the shape suits. Publishing gives you a link to send and a print view with the blank grid, the clue list and a separate answer sheet on A4. Nobody you send it to needs an account to solve it.
Printing it for a room full of people
Every puzzle on the site has a print view laid out for A4: an empty grid, the clues in two columns, and the answers on their own page so you can keep them back. Printing one copy per person and one answer sheet for whoever is running things is usually the right split.
If you would rather not print, the link works on any phone browser and keeps each person's progress separately, so a table can race without sharing a screen.