NYT Connections asks you to sort 16 words into four groups of four, each linked by a shared connection. You can make mistakes, but the official stats treat a puzzle completed in fewer than four mistakes as a win; the game’s help page documents personal performance statistics, not a universal numeric point score.
How do you play Connections?
Find four sets of four words that share a connection. The New York Times describes the game as one that “challenges players to find themes between words.” A group might be types of fish—Bass, Flounder, Salmon, and Trout—or words that start with FIRE: Ant, Drill, Island, and Opal. The words and categories are curated by editors using the Oxford Dictionary. NYT Help Center: Connections
Each puzzle has exactly one solution, but individual words can seem to fit more than one category. That overlap is intentional: an appealing group is not necessarily the intended one. As a practical check, ask whether choosing those four words still leaves a plausible way to make three complete groups from the remaining words. This is a logical inference from the one-solution rule, not a guaranteed method endorsed by NYT.
What do the Connections colors mean?
Colors indicate relative category difficulty. Yellow is the easiest category and Purple the trickiest. Green and Blue fall between those endpoints; the Help Center does not define a more precise universal ranking or taxonomy for them. A group’s color is about its intended difficulty, not a separate score.
#1 Best Overall
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How many mistakes are allowed?
You can submit incorrect groupings, and the game tracks them. NYT’s documented win-rate definition counts a puzzle as a win when you complete it in fewer than four mistakes. That is a threshold used in the statistics, not a promise that every player receives the same number of chances under every game version; consult the current game interface for the active puzzle’s remaining-mistake display.
For a practical approach, be wary of a tempting set whose words could plausibly belong elsewhere. A third-party strategy guide recommends solving easier groups first and watching for red herrings; treat this as general advice rather than an official NYT rule. Connection Hints: How to Play Connections
Rank #2
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What does “scoring” mean in Connections?
The official support page describes statistics and a mistake-based win outcome, not a universal point total awarded for each group. The documented statistics are:
- Puzzles Completed
- Win Rate: puzzles completed in fewer than four mistakes divided by puzzles played
- Current Streak and Max Streak
- Perfect Puzzles: puzzles solved with zero mistakes
- Mistake Histogram, showing the distribution of mistakes
A current streak depends on consecutive wins and solving before local midnight. Finishing after local midnight breaks the streak and starts a new one. The Help Center does not establish a numeric points system, so “scoring” is best understood as whether you solved the puzzle, how many mistakes you made, and how your performance appears in these stats. NYT Help Center: Connections
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What hints and help features are available?
| Feature | Access | What it offers | Personalized? | Spoiler consideration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connections Bot | All Access, Home Delivery, and Games subscribers | Daily analysis including puzzle difficulty, comparison with other players, skill score, solution uniqueness rating, category difficulty and solve order, common mistakes with AI-generated descriptions, and a guess-by-guess breakdown | Yes, it analyzes your play | It is documented as analysis and statistics, not as an unrestricted hint generator |
| Connections Companion | Anyone can read the community forum | Hints, comments, and a difficulty score | No; it is a community forum | Comments may contain spoilers, so finish first or scroll carefully |
These feature details are from the NYT Help Center; eligibility and availability can change.
When does the daily puzzle appear, and where can you play?
The Help Center says the daily puzzle releases at midnight in the player’s timezone. It lists the Games app, nytimes.com/games/connections, nytimes.com/theathletic, and the NYT News app as play locations. Sign-in is not required to play, though NYT recommends an account to retain progress across devices or platforms. Check current Help Center details if access or app navigation differs.
Rank #4
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Can you play old Connections puzzles?
The Connections archive is available to All Access and Games subscribers and, according to the current Help Center page accessed October 7, 2026, goes back to June 12, 2023. The archive is accessible on the web through the crosswords navigation menu and in the Games app; it is not available through the News app’s Play tab.
Archive play affects Puzzles Completed, Win Rate, Perfect Puzzles, and Mistake Distribution, but not Current Streak or Max Streak. A completed archived puzzle cannot be replayed. NYT Help Center: Connections
Best Value
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What research says about solving difficulty
A 2024 paper by Angel Yahir Loredo Lopez, Tyler McDonald, and Ali Emami describes a dataset of 358 Connections-derived puzzles collected from June 12, 2023 through June 3, 2024. In the authors’ 100-puzzle evaluation, human accuracy was 56% without hints and 60.67% with contextual hints. Those are results from that study’s dataset and benchmark setup, not typical-player odds or an official game statistic. Loredo Lopez, McDonald, and Emami, “NYT-Connections: A Deceptively Simple Text Classification Task that Stumps System-1 Thinkers”
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