CrossDowns is similar to Grabble in many ways. The critical difference is that CrossDowns uses more flexible and elevated criteria for allowable words in it's dictionaries than allowed in Grabble.

Another major difference is in the Large Variant available in CrossDowns, CrossDowns Race, CrossDowns Stacker, Stacking CrossDowns. The board is 21 x 21 boxes square instead of 15 x 15. There are opportunities as you play towards the outer board to score higher with 5x letter (5 diamonds) and 5x word (bullseye) multipliers. There are several areas where, if things work just right, players can score 2 Quad words on one play. There are also twice as many tiles in the bag.

There is also a variant which is a 5x5 Square CrossDowns. It is similar to the 4x4, but allows the player to use 2,3,4, and 5 letter words, sort of a mini Stacking CrossDowns.

Additionally, there is a feature that allows players to swap tiles for blanks enabling players to add blanks to their hands. Doing so takes up a turn but it adds to the strategy.

As in Grabble, the object is to score the highest. This can be best accomplished by using the letter and word multipliers wisely, trying to place higher value letters and letter combinations on them while not giving your opponent too many opportunities to do the same.

It's a good idea, when possible, to try to avoid setting up your opponent to use those squares, but sometimes it can be to your advantage to do just that, especially in the outer corners of the Large variants.