If you’re struggling with Wednesday’s Connections puzzle, Newsweek is here to help with another round of hints.
Since its debut in The New York Times in June 2023, Connections has rapidly gained popularity, becoming the publication’s second most popular game behind Wordle, another word-based puzzle. The game challenges players with a combination of techniques such as homophones and wordplay, making the puzzles consistently engaging and rarely straightforward.
Answers for Wednesday’s Connections can be found toward the end of the article, so proceed with caution if you want to solve it yourself.
How to Play Connections
Each day, Connections presents players with a grid of 16 words. Your goal is to group these into four sets of four based on common themes or characteristics.
These groups are color-coded by difficulty level: yellow (easiest), green, blue and purple (hardest). When you correctly identify a group, those words will be highlighted and removed from the grid. The corresponding color will reveal how challenging the group was intended to be.
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Players have four attempts to correctly guess the four groups. If you are unable to get all four connections, the answers and their corresponding difficulty color will be revealed by the game at the end. If stuck, players can hit the shuffle button, which will mix up where the words appear on the screen.
Wyna Liu, a crossword editor at The New York Times who developed Connections, previously shared her tips for playing the game with Newsweek.
“My best piece of advice is to wait as long as you can before guessing,” she said.
“You may see the board and have completely identified the category, seeing five words that could belong in that category. Don’t try to guess the four words in that category because, even though you know what the fifth member is, you won’t know which of the four it might not be.” This would ultimately waste a turn.
Liu added: “Don’t do what I do, which is ‘rage solve.'”
Connections #479 Clues for Wednesday, October 2
Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out Wednesday’s Connections categories.
Yellow: Actions that may have negative consequences.
Green: These are all words that relate to food preparation.
Blue: Movies that an aging Hollywood actor has starred in.
Purple: This category will make you think about things—and humans—that have something like a limb.
Connections #479 Answers for Wednesday, October 2
Yellow Category: PUT ON THE LINE
Yellow Words: Bet, Chance, Gamble, Risk
Green Category: USE A KITCHEN KNIFE
Green Words: Cube, Dice, Julienne, Slice
Blue Category: ROBERT DE NIRO FILMS
Blue Words: Casino, Heat, Joker, Taxi Driver
Purple Category: DISTINCTIVE NUMBER OF ARMS (OR LACK THEREOF)
Purple Words: Octopus, Shiva, Slot Machine, Venus de Milo
Did you work out the answers? If so, congratulations; if not, don’t be put off. Practice makes perfect, and the next Connections puzzle will be published on Thursday.
Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone, and Newsweek will be back tomorrow with another round of hints and tips.
