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NYT Connections gives you 16 words and asks you to sort them into four groups of four, with each group linked by a shared connection. You can make mistakes while solving; the game tracks them and your results in personal statistics rather than publishing a universal point score for each puzzle.
How do you play Connections?
Select four words you think share a connection, then submit the group. Repeat until all 16 words have been sorted into four groups. Connections can be based on straightforward categories or wordplay: the New York Times Help Center, for example, gives FISH (Bass, Flounder, Salmon, Trout) and words that start with FIRE (Ant, Drill, Island, Opal).
Every puzzle has exactly one solution, but the words are deliberately chosen so some may seem to fit more than one category. NYT says its editors curate words and categories using the Oxford Dictionary. A plausible group is not necessarily the intended one.
How many mistakes are you allowed?
You may submit incorrect groups, but the official statistics define a win as completing a puzzle in fewer than four mistakes. In other words, three mistakes can still count as a win; four or more do not. The mistake histogram records how many mistakes you made on completed puzzles.
That threshold describes the win-rate statistic, not a promise that every mode or future version will use identical rules. The official Help Center page accessed October 7, 2026 is the source for the current definition.
What do the colors mean?
Each solved group is assigned one of four colors, which indicate relative category difficulty. NYT identifies Yellow as the easiest and Purple as the trickiest. Green and Blue fall between those endpoints; the Help Center does not establish a more precise, universal ranking or taxonomy for them.
Rank #2
Why do words seem to fit more than one category?
Overlapping possibilities are part of the puzzle design, not necessarily a sign that the board is flawed. NYT explicitly says words may appear to fit multiple categories even though each puzzle has exactly one solution.
A useful reasoning check is to ask whether choosing a tempting group still leaves enough words to make three complete groups of four. That follows logically from the one-solution structure, but it is practical advice, not a strategy NYT guarantees will work. A third-party guide also recommends trying easier groups first and watching for red herrings; treat that as general player advice rather than an official rule.
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| Option | Access and what it offers | Personalized to your game? | Spoiler consideration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connections Bot | Daily analysis for All Access, Home Delivery, and Games subscribers. It can show puzzle difficulty and how you compared, a skill score and solution uniqueness rating, category difficulty and solve order, common mistakes with AI-generated descriptions, and a guess-by-guess breakdown. | Yes; it analyzes your results. | It is documented as analysis and statistics, not an unrestricted hint generator. |
| Connections Companion | A community forum where anyone can read hints, comments, and the difficulty score. | No; it is community discussion. | Comments may contain spoilers, so finish first or scroll carefully. |
These features are described in the NYT Help Center’s Connections guide. Availability and feature details can change.
How does Connections scoring work?
The official documentation describes mistake-based outcomes and personal performance statistics; it does not document a universal numeric point total for solving a group or puzzle. The stats page lists:
- Puzzles Completed
- Win Rate: puzzles completed in under four mistakes divided by puzzles played
- Current Streak and Max Streak
- Perfect Puzzles: puzzles solved with zero mistakes
- Mistake Histogram (also described as Mistake Distribution in archive-stat details)
A current streak counts consecutive wins and depends on finishing before midnight in your timezone. Completing a puzzle after local midnight breaks the streak and starts a new one. The daily puzzle releases at midnight in the player’s timezone.
A 2024 research paper offers context about puzzle difficulty, not an official scoring rule. Angel Yahir Loredo Lopez, Tyler McDonald, and Ali Emami report a dataset of 358 Connections-derived puzzles collected from June 12, 2023 through June 3, 2024. In a separate 100-puzzle evaluation under the paper’s benchmark conditions, human accuracy was 56% without hints and 60.67% with contextual hints. Those figures describe that study’s setup, not expected results for typical players.
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The archive is available to All Access and Games subscribers and, according to the Help Center page accessed October 7, 2026, reaches back to June 12, 2023. Archive play affects Puzzles Completed, Win Rate, Perfect Puzzles, and Mistake Distribution, but it does not affect current or maximum streaks. A completed archived puzzle cannot be replayed.
The Help Center says the archive is available through the web crosswords navigation menu and in the Games app; it is not available through the News app’s Play tab.
Where and when can you play the daily puzzle?
NYT lists the Games app, nytimes.com/games/connections, nytimes.com/theathletic, and the NYT News app as places to play. Its Help Center says sign-in is not required, though a NYT account is recommended to retain progress across devices or platforms. Since app and access arrangements can change, check the current official guide if a route is unavailable.
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