As the weekend is upon us, so too is another New York Times Connections puzzle.
The Times introduced the immensely popular brainteaser in June of last year, and it has since become the newspaper's second most played game after Wordle, another word-based puzzle. In its debut year, 55.2 million people completed a Connections puzzle without making any mistakes.
Below are the instructions for playing the game. Clues and answers for Sunday's puzzle are near the end of the article, so proceed carefully.
How to Play Connections
Connections challenges players to group 16 words into four categories based on their associations.
Each category is color-coded to indicate its difficulty level: yellow for the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. The puzzles are rarely straightforward, often incorporating homophones, wordplay, and other techniques to keep players on their toes.
The familiarity and frequency of the words in modern life also contribute to the difficulty, though less-common words aren't restricted to the harder categories. Another challenge is "item overlap" where a single word can fit into multiple categories.
If players get stuck, they can use the shuffle button to rearrange the words on the screen.
Wyna Liu, a crossword editor at the Times who was asked to develop Connections, recently 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," she continued. "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.
"Don't do what I do, which is 'rage solve,'" Liu said.
Connections #413 Clues for Sunday, July 28
Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out today's Connections categories.
Yellow: These words can be linked to something you might do on the beach.
Green: For these answers, think of your pet.
Blue: How you feel when you have an exam.
Purple: Think about your 5-a-day.
Connections #413 Answers for Sunday, July 28
Yellow category: Parts of a book
Yellow words: Cover, jacket, page, spine
Green category: Cat coat patterns
Green words: Calico, tabby, tortoiseshell, tuxedo
Blue category: Nervousness, in the singular
Blue words: Butterfly, jitter, nerve, willy
Purple category: Starting with vegetables
Purple words: Beethoven, cornucopia, kaleidoscope, peacock
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, there will be another opportunity to crack the puzzle tomorrow.
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