About Mini #304
Mini #304 is the daily 5×5 for Friday, July 31, 2026. Its grid has six black squares, laid out as three-square L-shapes in the top-left and bottom-right corners, which leaves 19 white squares for ten answers: five Across and five Down. By length, that's two five-letter, four four-letter and four three-letter answers.
The shortest clue is 6-Across, “Not closed”, at two words; the longest is 5-Across, “Sound of Music heroine von Trapp”, at six words. None of the ten clues is a fill-in-the-blank, a quotation, a question-mark clue or a marked short form.
There's no fill-in-the-blank this time, so a good first stop is the shortest slot: 1-Across has only three letters. Some clues lean on a name or title, such as 4-Across, “Cone-shaped Native American tent”, 5-Across, “Sound of Music heroine von Trapp”, 1-Down, “Broadcast on TV” and 3-Down, “Sorento or Sportage automaker”; if one is unfamiliar, work its crossing answers first. For more ways in, see the solving tips.
How this grid compares
This layout appears in 19 of the 250 daily 5×5 puzzles in our library dated up to July 31, 2026. The layout is rotationally symmetric: turn the grid upside down and the black squares land in the same places. That's two black squares more than the day before (July 30, 2026), which had four.
Like every daily 5×5 in our library, it was generated at our “easy” difficulty setting. The same date also has a 6×6 with 12 clues and a 7×7 with 16 clues.
More for July 31, 2026
Stuck? The hints for July 31, 2026 give three hints per clue, the answer key reveals one answer at a time, and there's a printable copy for solving on paper. The day after, Mini #305 (August 1, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Take more than one's share of”.