NYT Connections

Connections launched in June 2023 after a brief beta period. Each day offers sixteen tiles that must be sorted into four themed groups of four, with only four strikes before the board locks. Categories vary from clear-cut trivia to punny wordplay, and colors reveal difficulty as you solve.

• Launch: released June 2023 on web and in the NYT Games app.
• Structure: four hidden categories arranged from easiest (yellow) to hardest (purple).
• Strikes: four mistakes maximum; undo removes your last guess before a strike lands.

Official access and pricing

Play Connections at NYTimes.com/games/connections. The daily puzzle is currently free with a New York Times account on both web and the NYT Games app; archives are not offered, and the game is bundled with NYT Games subscriptions for streak tracking in-app.

Origins and updates

Connections was prototyped by associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu, who wanted a grouping challenge that rewarded lateral thinking. Early testers asked for clearer feedback, which led to the colored bands and the “shuffled after a solve” animation that confirms success. Seasonal special editions sometimes add mini-boards or themed word lists for holidays.

Editors now rotate category types: proper nouns, idioms, spelling-based tricks, and category outliers designed to misdirect you toward an early strike. During big news events, you may see timely references woven into sets, but the purple group often hides abstract patterns like suffixes (-NESS, -ETTE) or shared beginnings.

Strategy: spotting categories quickly

• Look for wordplay: homophones, puns, and verb tenses frequently drive the toughest purple set.
• Check parts of speech: grouping nouns separately from verbs often prevents accidental overlaps.
• Test suspect foursomes: if you are unsure, try a guess—an incorrect attempt only costs a strike when the set is wrong.
• Leave the ambiguity for last: confirm two easy groups to shrink the search space before tackling trick entries.
• Start positions: place visually similar words in corners of your note sheet (colors, months, sports) and move misfits to the side until a pattern emerges.

If two tiles seem to fit multiple groups, check tense and plurality; the editors often use number agreement to point to the correct set. When you are one strike from locking out, cycle through the list and note any repeated prefixes or word lengths—those subtle cues usually indicate the purple difficulty group.

Advanced drills and opener templates

Borrow a "Getting to Genius" mindset by rotating your starting tactic daily: one day, circle all proper nouns first; another day, isolate obvious verbs; a third day, list every shared suffix. Keep a notebook of common purple misdirects like UNITES/UNIONS or color shades that double as verbs. Reviewing these traps before starting accelerates recognition when the stakes are high.

• Grid mapping: draw a 2×2 box on paper and assign one tile to each corner as you hypothesize a set; reassigning corners forces you to test alternative connections without burning strikes.
• Time splits: give yourself a three-minute limit to lock two groups, then pause, reshuffle, and spend two more minutes on the toughest eight tiles. The break prevents tunnel vision.
• Category flashcards: create cards labeled COLORS, MUSICIANS, SUFFIXES, SPORTS, TEXTURES, and SLANG. When stumped, check which label best fits a majority of the remaining tiles to guide your next guess.
• Rebuild past boards: after solving, reorganize the tiles into alternative valid sets. This construction exercise trains you to spot plausible—but wrong—connections faster.

Interesting notes

Connections’ color-coded difficulty line mirrors the Crossword’s day-of-week curve, giving players a sense of momentum as groups turn yellow, green, blue, then purple. Its social share grid resembles the Wordle emoji pattern, helping the puzzle go viral across group chats and forums.

Practice idea: replay an old board and intentionally guess the wrong set first to see which tiles were red herrings. This builds intuition for bait words that belong to easier categories, sharpening your sense of what a true purple-level connection feels like.