Played by the same rules as Scrabble(tm), Crosswords supports games between from one to four human or robot players, in most European languages via downloadable dictionaries, and between smartphones over the wireless network or using SMS/text messages. Crosswords is free/open source software, and has no annoying ads.
You may wonder why Crosswords requires so many permissions. Here are the ones you're most likely to question:
* read/receive/send SMS messages
If, and only if, you have explicitly enabled the "Allow games via SMS" feature, Crosswords lets you exchange moves transparently via SMS so you don't require a server. Access to your SMS messages is required for this. If you do not enable this feature Crosswords will not use SMS-related permissions.
* Read call log/contacts
Again, these permissions are used only if you explicitly enable play via SMS. They allow Crosswords to let you lookup the phone number of someone to invite/challenge.
* Run at startup
If you are playing games via the relay and don't have "Google Cloud Messaging" enabled then periodically Crosswords checks to see if there are any moves waiting for you. Without this permission it could not start checking after you rebooted your phone until you actually started it, which not everybody thinks to do.
* Prevent phone from sleeping
There is an optional setting, disabled by default, that keeps the screen on for a longer period. It was requested by users who found the board going dark while they were studying it. If you do not enable this setting this permission is not used.