“Connections” is a popular online word game that challenges players to group sixteen words into four categories based on association. The game was launched by The New York Times in June 2023 and has quickly become one of the most-played games on the newspaper’s website, following Wordle. Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, signifying the difficulty level, with yellow being the easiest and purple being the hardest. The game uses a variety of techniques, such as wordplay and homophones, to keep players engaged and challenged.
Players can use the shuffle button if they get stuck, which mixes up where the words appear on the screen. Wyna Liu, a crossword editor at The New York Times who developed Connections, offers some tips for playing the game. She advises players to wait as long as possible before guessing and to avoid “rage solving,” where players hastily guess the four words in a category without considering all possibilities. The answers for each day’s puzzle are revealed at the end of the article, allowing players to check their answers and see if they were correct.
Each day’s puzzle comes with clues and answers, such as the following from a recent puzzle: Yellow Category: AREA OF HIGH GROUND (Words: Bank, Dune, Hill, Mound); Green Category: SIGNIFICANCE (Words: Gravity, Import, Substance, Weight); Blue Category: ACTIONS IN FANTASY SPORTS (Words: Bench, Draft, Start, Trade); Purple Category: SCI-FI MOVIES, WITH “THE” (Words: Abyss, Fly, Matrix, Thing). Players can test their skills and see if they can correctly group the words into the specified categories.
The game is designed to challenge players with a mix of common and less common words, as well as the possibility of “item overlap,” where one word can be linked to multiple categories. Players are encouraged to think creatively and consider all possible connections between the words to successfully complete each puzzle. Connections is released daily at midnight in each player’s local time zone, providing a new challenge for word game enthusiasts to tackle. Newsweek provides hints and tips for each new game, helping players navigate the tricky puzzles and improve their skills.
