Connections is a word puzzle developed and published by ''
The New York Times'' as part of ''
The New York Times Games''. It was released for PC on June 12, 2023, during its
beta phase. It is the second-most-played game that is published by ''Times'', behind ''
Wordle''.
Several figures associated with ''
Only Connect
''Only Connect'' is a British television quiz show presented by Victoria Coren Mitchell. In the series, teams compete in a tournament of finding connections between seemingly unrelated clues. The title is taken from a passage in E. M. Fo ...
'', a British television
quiz show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, sh ...
, commented on its similarity to the Connecting Wall in the program.
Gameplay
In Connections, the goal is to divide a grid of sixteen words into four groups of four such that the words in each group belong to a specific category (e.g., "dog", "cat", "fish", and "parrot" for the category "Household Pets"). The categories may involve wordplay such as
palindrome
A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as the words ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date and time ''11/11/11 11:11,'' and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Panam ...
s or
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
s, increasing the difficulty.
When a player successfully identifies a group, its category is revealed along with a color-coded difficulty level: categories are rated yellow, green, blue, or purple, with yellow being the most straightforward and purple being the most difficult. Each Connections game has one category from each difficulty level.
For
April Fools' Day of 2024, the game temporarily used
emojis instead of words.
Development
The games department of the ''Times'' hosts an annual
game jam in which participants suggest ideas for upcoming games to release to the website. Connections had been in development for a year before releasing in its beta phase on June 12, 2023.
, editor of the ''Times'' and Connectionss puzzles, was inspired by cartoonist
Robert Leighton
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...
, who made puzzles involving
wordplay.
See also
*
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:New York Times Connections, The
2023 video games
Browser games
Mobile games
Single-player video games
Connections
Connections may refer to:
Television
* '' Connections: An Investigation into Organized Crime in Canada'', a documentary television series
* ''Connections'' (British documentary), a documentary television series and book by science historian Jam ...
Video games developed in the United States
Word puzzle video games
Word games