TL;DR: Cruzadinha BLA is made in Goiânia 🇧🇷. This is not a biographical detail, it is an editorial decision. A Brazilian crossword born outside the São Paulo-Rio axis has a different vocabulary, a different rhythm, a different kind of word entering the archive. The Cerrado, the inland accent, the geography of the word that comes from far.
Most Brazilian crosswords were born in São Paulo or in Rio de Janeiro. Coquetel is from Rio. Folha de S. Paulo is from São Paulo. Estadão too. Globo is from Rio. The 100-year history of the crossword in Portuguese is, for the most part, a São Paulo-Rio history.
It is not a defect. It is what was there. But there is a concrete difference when a Brazilian crossword is made in Goiânia, and that difference shows up in the archive.
Goiânia is not an address, it is a viewpoint. Goiânia is the capital of Goiás, a planned city like Brasília, but twenty years earlier. Seven hundred thousand inhabitants in the central area, plus a million in the metropolitan region. It has the Cerrado around, has the geography of the inland, has an accent that is neither paulista nor carioca. Whoever grows up in Goiânia knows pequi, knows guariroba, knows capivara as an animal that shows up in an urban river. Knows that Avenida 85 is the main street of the Bueno neighborhood. Knows that Parque Flamboyant is full of bem-te-vi in the morning. These are facts of whoever lives here.
When Cruzadinha BLA is made in Goiânia, these facts enter the archive more easily. Not as a regional quota, not as a forced detail. As vocabulary available to the writer of the clue.
The Cerrado enters the app. The Cerrado is the second largest biome in Brazil, after the Amazon, and the most threatened by deforestation pace. It covers a good part of Brazilian territory, from Mato Grosso to western Bahia, passing through Goiás, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, the Federal District. It is also the most overlooked biome in cultural material. In a crossword made in São Paulo, "Cerrado" is a chapter from the geography textbook. In a crossword made in Goiânia, "Cerrado" is the vegetation you see when you drive out for the weekend. It makes a difference in the clue. Pequi, baru, jatobá, ipê, cagaita, mangaba, gabiroba, araticum, jaracatiá. These words enter with more weight in the archive of a crossword made in Goiânia. They are for whoever plays in Goiás. They are for whoever plays in Brasília. They are also for whoever plays in São Paulo and wants to learn something they did not know yet.
Pull quote: A Brazilian crossword has to have an accent. The accent of the place where it was made.
What opens when you step outside the axis. A São Paulo-Rio crossword has a fixed repertoire. Niemeyer, Drummond, Machado, Cazuza, Pelé, Globo, Maracanã, Bovespa. It all fits, it is all canonical, all of it has been crossword material in newspapers for the last 50 years. It is vast and legitimate repertoire. A Goiás-based crossword opens other words. Path of Cora Coralina, the palace in Brasília that Niemeyer designed, the Oscar Niemeyer Cultural Center (which is also in Goiânia, not just in Brasília), Veredas (the book by Guimarães Rosa, a writer from Minas but with a backlands narrative, close to ours). And also what is not openly from the inland, but mixes in: full Brazilian popular music, all Brazilian literature, all the vocabulary that was already there. It is not separation. It is addition. When someone in Recife plays a Goiás-based crossword and finds "pequi", they learn a word. When someone in Porto Alegre plays and finds "ipê", they remember a street. When someone in Brasília plays and finds "Cerrado", they recognize home.
Read across Brazil. Regionality is not exclusion. It is temperance. Cruzadinha BLA will not become a Goiás encyclopedia. It is still a Brazilian crossword. It still has Niemeyer, Machado, Drummond in the archive. Only with pequi, Cerrado, baru too. Expanded. Did not replace. Most of the archive is national canon. A fraction is regional vocabulary that opens new words to whoever had not thought of them. It is that fraction that makes a difference, and that only exists because the app was made in a specific place. Brazilian crossword apps made anywhere in Brazil are welcome. The good crossword fits in any accent. This is just the accent of this app.
Common questions. Is Cruzadinha BLA only about Goiás? No. The archive is canonical Brazilian: Niemeyer, Drummond, Machado, MPB, literature, geography. The Goiás regionality enters as vocabulary expansion, not as the only theme. Will someone who is not from Goiás be able to solve it? Yes. The regional words appear in context, with clues that teach whoever did not know yet. Pequi becomes an opportunity to learn, not an obstacle. Why have a crossword made outside São Paulo-Rio? Because a Brazilian crossword has the accent of the place where it was made. The 100 years of history were mostly São Paulo-Rio, and that shaped what enters as "canonical". Having an app made in Goiânia expands the vocabulary available for the Brazilian crossword as a genre. What is BLA Publicações e Conteúdo Digital? An independent editorial studio based in Goiânia, directed by Ivan Grycuk. BLA publishes iOS apps for people. Cruzadinha BLA is one of the apps from BLA.
Cruzadinha BLA is on the App Store, free. Download at https://apps.apple.com/app/cruzadinha-bla/id6769588425, or open the app page at https://bla.vc/apps/cruzadinha.
