Connections is the New York Times’ newest puzzle game, designed to challenge your word skills. The game presents you with 16 words, and your goal is to sort them into four secret groups by identifying what ties them together. These groups could relate to anything—from types of food to movie characters or even names of colors. As you solve each group, the game will reveal the common theme that links the words. The difficulty of each puzzle varies, keeping you on your toes, and a new one arrives every day at midnight.
Just like with Wordle, you can keep track of your progress with a winning streak, and you can compare how well you’re doing with your friends. If you’re stuck on a particular day’s puzzle, don’t worry—there are tips and answers available to give you a hand!
How to Play NYT Connections
When you start a game, you’ll see a grid of 16 words. Your task is to organize them into four groups of four, based on how they’re related. The themes could be anything, like names of chain restaurants, characters from books, or even different shades of a color. To make things more challenging, some words might seem like they fit into more than one group, but there’s only one correct answer for each puzzle.
The game makes it easy to work through tricky spots. You can shuffle the words around to spot potential connections. Once you think you’ve figured out a group, select the four words and hit “Submit.” If you’re right, the words will disappear, and the theme will be revealed. But if you’re wrong, it counts as a mistake, and you only get four mistakes before the game ends.
Each group is color-coded, with the yellow group usually being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple, which are more challenging.
Hints for Today’s NYT Connections
If today’s puzzle has you stumped, we can help by offering some clues. We’ll tell you what the four themes are, and if you need a bit more help, we’ll even give you one word from each group.
Here are the themes for today:
- Cook with heat and water
- Common perfume ingredients
- Characters with pet dogs
- Capital city homophones
Need a word from each group?
- Cook with heat and water: Blanch
- Common perfume ingredients: Ambergris
- Characters with pet dogs: Charlie
- Capital city homophones: Keto
Today’s NYT Connections Answers
Still having trouble? Don’t worry, this game is designed to be a bit tricky! If you’d like to see today’s answers, here they are:
- Cook with heat and water: Blanch, Boil, Poach, Steam
- Common perfume ingredients: Ambergris, Musk, Rose, Vanilla
- Characters with pet dogs: Charlie, Dorothy, Shaggy, Wallace
- Capital city homophones: Keto, Roam, Sophia, Soul
The puzzles change every day, so if you couldn’t crack today’s, don’t sweat it—come back tomorrow and try again!