You know the feeling. It’s 8:00 AM, you’re on your second cup of coffee, and you’re staring at a grid of sixteen words that seem to have absolutely nothing in common. Except, they do. Or they sort of do. That’s the magic of the New York Times Connections game, the daily puzzle that has somehow managed to capture the same viral lightning in a bottle as Wordle did back in 2021.
Wyna Liu, an associate puzzle editor at the Times, is the mastermind behind these grids. She isn't just picking random words out of a hat. She’s looking for ways to trick your brain into seeing patterns that aren't there while hiding the ones that are. It’s a psychological game as much as a linguistic one. Honestly, it’s frustrating. It’s brilliant. And if you’ve ever lost your streak because of a "red herring," you know exactly how high the stakes feel for a bunch of digital colored squares.
Why the New York Times Connections Game Is Harder Than It Looks
The premise is deceptively simple: find four groups of four words that share a common thread. You get four mistakes before you’re locked out for the day. But the difficulty curve is where things get interesting. The game categorizes its groups by color. Yellow is the most straightforward—the "gimme." Green is slightly more complex. Blue usually involves some kind of specific trivia or niche knowledge. Purple? Purple is the wild card. It often involves wordplay, like "Words that follow a specific prefix" or "Homophones for internal organs."
The real trick isn't finding a group of four. It's making sure those four don't belong anywhere else. The New York Times Connections game is built on the concept of the "red herring."
The Art of the Red Herring
Let's look at a hypothetical (but very realistic) example. Imagine you see the words: BASS, DRUM, FLUTE, and REED.
Your brain screams "Musical Instruments!" You click them. One mistake. Why? Because while BASS, DRUM, and FLUTE are instruments, REED is actually part of a different category—maybe "Types of Grass" along with SEDGE and RUSH. Or maybe BASS was meant to be paired with PERCH and TROUT in a "Fish" category.
This overlapping logic is what separates a casual solver from a pro. The editors love to use words that can be both a noun and a verb, or words that have radically different meanings depending on the context. LEAD can be a heavy metal, or it can mean to guide a group. If you don't stop to consider every possible definition of a word before you click, you're toast.
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The Strategy Most People Overlook
If you want to stop losing your streak, you have to slow down. Most people treat the New York Times Connections game like a race. It isn’t. Unlike the Crossword, where speed is a point of pride for some, Connections is about precision.
One of the most effective strategies is what some players call "The Grid Scan." Instead of looking for four words that match, look for five. If you find five words that seem to fit a category, you know you haven't found the right group yet. One of those words belongs somewhere else. You have to isolate the "odd man out" by looking at the remaining eleven words.
Don't Guess the Purple Category
Here is a secret: you don't actually have to solve the Purple category.
Since there are only four groups, if you can figure out Yellow, Green, and Blue, the Purple words will be the only ones left. You can just select them and win. This is vital because Purple categories are often meta. They might be "Words that start with a chemical element symbol" or "Palindromes." Those are incredibly hard to spot when they're mixed in with standard categories. By process of elimination, you bypass the hardest part of the puzzle.
The Cultural Impact of Daily Puzzling
Why are we so obsessed with this? Why does my family group chat explode at 9:00 AM with those colored emoji squares?
Digital puzzles provide a sense of "completion" in a world that often feels chaotic. When you solve the New York Times Connections game, you've mastered a small, controlled universe. You've brought order to sixteen chaotic words. It's a hit of dopamine that carries you through your morning meeting.
The Times knows this. Ever since they bought Wordle from Josh Wardle for a "low seven-figure sum" in early 2022, they've been doubling down on these short-form, shareable games. Connections is the crown jewel of that strategy. It’s designed for social media. The grid of colored squares is a visual language that tells everyone how you did without spoiling the answers. It’s brilliant marketing disguised as a hobby.
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
You’ve probably been there. You have one life left. You’re staring at eight words. You feel like you’ve tried every combination.
- The Synonym Trap: Just because four words are synonyms doesn't mean they're the group. Sometimes the group is "Words that can follow 'Cold'." (Cold FEET, Cold SHOULDER, Cold CALL, Cold FRONT).
- Ignoring the Theme: Every group has a cohesive theme. If your "group" feels a little weak—like "Things that are mostly round"—it's probably wrong. The themes are usually more specific than that.
- The "One Away" Message: Pay attention to that pop-up! If the game tells you that you are "one away," it means three of the four words you selected are correct. This is the most valuable piece of information the game gives you. Stop. Look at the word you didn't select. Look at the word in your selection that feels the "shakiest." Swap them.
Evolution of the Game
The New York Times Connections game has evolved since its beta launch in the summer of 2023. Early puzzles were arguably a bit easier, but as the player base has grown more sophisticated, the editors have turned up the heat. We're seeing more obscure trivia and more complex wordplay. Some players have complained that the "Blue" and "Purple" categories have become too reliant on specific American cultural knowledge, which can be a barrier for international players.
Despite these gripes, the daily active user count continues to climb. It’s a testament to the game's balance of frustration and reward.
How to Get Better Today
Improving your game isn't just about knowing more words. It’s about changing how you look at the grid.
- Read every word out loud. Sometimes hearing the word helps you realize it's a homophone for something else.
- Shuffle the grid. The "Shuffle" button is there for a reason. Our brains get stuck in "spatial patterns." We start to think two words go together just because they are next to each other in the UI. Hit shuffle every few minutes to break those mental associations.
- Step away. If you're stuck, close the app. Go do something else for twenty minutes. When you come back, your brain will often see a connection that was invisible before. This is the "incubation period" in psychology—your subconscious keeps working on the problem even when you're not thinking about it.
The New York Times Connections game isn't going anywhere. It’s become a staple of the modern morning routine, a digital crossword for the TikTok generation. It’s fast, it’s clever, and yeah, it’s occasionally infuriating. But that’s why we keep coming back.
Actionable Steps for Your Next Solve
To consistently beat the grid, start by identifying potential "crossover" words that fit multiple categories. These are your red herrings. Identify them early, but do not click them until you have found their "true" home in a different group. Use the "one away" hint to isolate the outlier in your current selection rather than blindly guessing a new set. Finally, always save the most obscure or confusing words for last, as the process of elimination is your strongest tool for clearing the "Purple" category without needing to understand its logic.