Connections (New York Times Game)
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About
Connections is a word puzzle game created and hosted by The New York Times, alongside Wordle. The game requires players to create four groups of four words from a grid of 16 squares, each group representing a particular category that the four words fit into. It is the second most played game published by the Times, behind Wordle, and was first released on June 12th, 2023.
History
Connections was first released in its beta stage for PC on June 12th, 2023, nearly a year after it first began development. The game has been likened to the British television quiz show Only Connect, with people commenting on the similarities between the layout of the game and the "Connecting Wall" in the British program.[1] Times editor Wyna Liu credits cartoonist Robert Leighton as an inspiration for the game.
Connections requires players to group 16 words into four groups of four, offering four chances attempts at incorrect groupings. These categories can range from simple ("types of birds") to complex ("colors with the first letter changed").
Online Presence
Discussions about the NYT Connections typically involve reactions to the categories devised for the daily game, which are sometimes overly obscure, overly simple or considered to be borderline untenable.
The September 7th, 2023, Connections game revolved around words associated with four popular movies, sparking reactions of players who had come to expect a more varied collection of categories. X[2][3] users @timerube and @jpbrammer made posts about that date's game, gathering over 1,000 and 5,000 likes, respectively, in roughly six months (seen below).
Other Connections games induced similar reactions. On February 22nd, 2024, X[4] user @buzzfeedjenny wrote, "nyt connections is conditioning people to become schizophrenic and find patterns that aren't there," referring to a game in which one category was "Colors with the first letter changed." A post by @lilgrapefruits[5] from February 27th joked about another user complaining over the category "Words beginning with instruments," gathering over 70,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).
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