Unwind Your Weekend With Connections: A Fun Puzzle Game

With the arrival of the weekend, what better way to unwind (while sharpening your puzzle-solving skills) than playing a round of Connections? Launched by The New York Times last summer, the brainteaser has become the newspaper's second-most-played game after Wordle. If this is your first time giving it a try, Connections challenges players to uncover threads connecting a series of words. Instructions on how to play the game are below. Clues and the answers for today's puzzle are toward the end of the article.

How to Play Connections

Connections tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, Friday's game linked the words "Foxtrot," "Hotel," "Victor," and "Yankee" under the category "NATO Phonetic Alphabet."

Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which also signifies their difficulty level. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green, blue, and purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep things interesting.

The uniting themes span a wide range of topics, from movie franchises to body parts. Once you have figured out one group, those words are removed from the grid. However, players only get four guesses. Each incorrect guess adds to your mistake tally, and after four wrong answers, it's game over.

Connections also has a shuffle button, which will mix up where the words appear on the screen to help players who might be stuck.

Insights from the Puzzle Editor

Explaining why the game has four difficulty levels, the Times' puzzle editor Wyna Liu said she toyed with different ways to make Connections more of a challenge. "There would have to be a mix of categories for the game to feel challenging and satisfying," she said in the Times. "Some categories might be defined by their use of wordplay—palindromes, homophones, adding or dropping letters and words—rather than the literal meanings of the words on the cards."

However, the familiarity of the words used, and how often they pop up in modern life, are also difficulty factors, although less-common words aren't only used in the harder categories. "Item overlap," where one word can be linked to multiple categories, is another way Connections tests players.

"Caution was needed when including items that might stand out in the grid, since they would invite immediate scrutiny," Liu explained. The answers for today's Connections puzzle will be revealed at the end of this article, so scroll with caution if you want to work them out yourself.

Clues for Today's Connections Puzzle

Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out today's Connections categories.

• Yellow: These words are associated with a popular ball sport.
• Green: Each of these answers is linked to aquatic life.
• Blue: For these answers, think of words a hairstylist might use.
• Purple: These words precede a term used for a young person.

Answers for Today's Connections Puzzle

Yellow Category: BASKETBALL SHOTS

• Yellow Words: Dunk, Floater, Layup, Three

Green Category: FISH

• Green Words: Perch, Pike, Skate, Sole

Blue Category: QUALITIES OF THICK HAIR

• Blue Words: Body, Bounce, Lift, Volume

Purple Category: ___ CHILD

• Purple Words: Flower, Only, Poster, Problem

Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations! If not, there will be another opportunity to crack the puzzle tomorrow. Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone. Newsweek will be back with another round of hints and tips for each new game.