TickWords is a video game that lets you create and play custom crosswords built directly from your own study materials. Simply drop in your digital files (PDF or TXT), and it generates revision crosswords from the key facts and concepts inside.

It also includes hundreds of pre-made crosswords covering a wide range of high-school and university subjects. The crosswords can be printed, or played as a video game. This provides students with a new tool to support their learning.

Crosswords are a relaxing way to study, but traditionally creating a high-quality crossword is both time-consuming and difficult. TickWords changes that by automating the process, it can scan your documents, extract the important terminology, and generate tailor-made crosswords in seconds.

The printable crosswords become versatile study aids you can do them during, or after, reading a chapter. It's also something you can do on a bus or train, where unpacking study materials is not practical. There is also something inherently social about it, you can ask a friend: Hey, seven down: pairing of electrons responsible for superconductivity... ends in r?, and they will just join you... to solve the puzzle.

While TickWords is great at printing crosswords, there are also advantages to doing them in the software:

• Each term can have multiple clues across three difficulty levels, so you can revisit subjects at a different difficulty setting.

• Get revision crosswords that revisit words you previously skipped, flagged, or took a long time to solve.

• Use spaced repetition crosswords to help memorize facts, just like you would with flash cards.