When Connections was introduced in June 2023, it quickly became a hit game.
In fact, it was so popular it came only second to Wordle as one of the most played games on the New York Times games app and website.
The daily word puzzle is edited by Wyna Liu for the newspaper and she shared some playing tips with Newsweek ahead of the game’s first anniversary in June.
“My best piece 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,” which would ultimately waste a turn.
She recommended trying to solve another category first, because that will likely remove the words that could belong to more than one group, reducing a risk of a mistake, because “your four guesses go by extremely quickly.”
How to Play ‘Connections’
There are 16 words that appear and player must sort them into groups of four across four categories based on how they think the words might be associated. For example, a previous Connections puzzle featured the words cater, host, plan and throw joined together in the category “Help put on a party.”
Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which lets you know their level of difficulty, from yellow which is the easiest category, followed by green, blue and purple. The puzzles are not always straightforward and use a range of possible associations from homophones and wordplay, among other techniques.
The answers for Thursday’s puzzle are toward the end of the article, so scroll with caution if you want to work them out yourself.
‘Connections’ #480 Clues for Thursday, October 3
Yellow: Drink names
Green: Looking after greenery
Blue: Buying in twos
Purple: Insect names, modified
New York Times
‘Connections’ #480 Answers for Thursday, October 3
Yellow Category: BEVERAGES
Yellow Words: Juice, Milk, Soda, Punch
Green Category: CARE FOR A PLANT
Green Words: Water, Prune, Pot, Fertilize
Blue Category: ITEMS SOLD IN PAIRS
Blue Words: Bookend, Earbud, Ski, Sock
Purple Category: BUGS PLUS STARTING LETTER
Purple Words: Blouse, Pant, Smite, Stick
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 Friday.
Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone, and Newsweek will be back tomorrow with another round of hints and tips.
