Connections became the second-most popular word puzzle in the New York Times games section less than 12 months after its launch.
Much of that success is due to its editor Wyna Liu's daily efforts to come up with the challenging—yet achievable—brainteasers.
"The response has been really incredible and overwhelming, and unexpected," Liu told Newsweek in June. "It's exciting that something I care very deeply about is resonating with people."
"The game has evolved with the solvers, and responds to solvers' experience and expectations," she explained, pointing out how she now sometimes "clusters" words on the board together that may trick people into thinking they don't belong together at all.
Liu was also generous enough to share her top tips for playing Connections.
"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," which would ultimately waste a turn.
How to Play 'Connections'
The brainteaser tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, one game linked the words "clear," "earn," "make" and "net," which all came under the category "take home, as income."
Instructions on how to play the game are below. Clues and the answers for Thursday's puzzle are toward the end of the article, so scroll with caution.
Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which also signifies the difficulty level. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green, blue and then purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep things interesting.
The uniting themes can come from a broad range of categories—anything from Halloween costumes to music genres.
If all four words are correctly placed into each set, those words will be removed from the board. Each incorrect guess counts toward the mistake tally. Up to four errors can be made before it is game over.
Newsweek has put together some handy tips to help you solve today's Connections, but scroll with caution because the answers appear below.
'Connections' #436 Clues for Tuesday, August 20
Newsweek is here with some hints to help you identify today's Connections categories.
Yellow: These words refer to different kinds of air movement.
Green: Words to move things around.
Blue: Animal symbols of the horoscope.
Purple: The main characters of a beloved children's author.
'Connections' #436 Answers for Tuesday, August 20
Yellow Category: RUSH OF WIND
Yellow Words: Blow, Draft, Gust, Puff
Green Category: ROTATE
Green Words: Crank, Reel, Turn, Wind
Blue Category: ZODIAC SYMBOLS
Blue Words: Bull, Crab, Lion, Ram
Purple Category: DR. SEUSS TITLE FIGURES
Purple Words: Cat, Grinch, Pop, Turtle
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