NYT Connections #873 was the Friday, October 31, 2025 puzzle—a Halloween-themed visual edition built around four fictional or game characters. Use the hints below before reading the full answer key.
NYT Connections puzzle #873 was published on Friday, October 31, 2025. It was an unusual Halloween edition: instead of presenting only ordinary printed words, the board used visual tiles representing objects and symbols. The four connections were fictional or game characters: GOLDILOCKS, CINDERELLA, POPEYE, and MS. PAC-MAN.
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Spoiler warning: The hints come first, followed by the complete tile groups and explanations.
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Here are the four category-level clues, without immediately listing all 16 answers:
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- Yellow: A fairy tale involving three bears and something that is “just right.”
- Green: A fairy tale involving a ball, a midnight deadline, and three stepsisters.
- Blue: A sailor famous for spinach, a pipe, and an anchor tattoo or nautical identity.
- Purple: A classic arcade character associated with fruit, ghosts, and pellets.
The key to this puzzle was to look for a shared character rather than a literal category such as “foods,” “clothing,” or “things found on a boat.” Each group contained four visual references to one well-known character.
NYT Connections #873 answers
| Color | Category | Tiles |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | GOLDILOCKS | BEAR, BED, CHAIR, PORRIDGE |
| Green | CINDERELLA | MOUSE, PUMPKIN, SLIPPER, WAND |
| Blue | POPEYE | ANCHOR, CAP, PIPE, SPINACH |
| Purple | MS. PAC-MAN | BOW, CHERRIES, GHOST, PELLETS |
Answer explanations
Yellow: GOLDILOCKS
BEAR, BED, CHAIR, PORRIDGE
These four tiles point to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Goldilocks encounters the bears’ beds and chairs and samples their porridge before finding the choice that is “just right.” The group was comparatively direct once the bear and porridge references were recognized.
Green: CINDERELLA
MOUSE, PUMPKIN, SLIPPER, WAND
The Cinderella group combines several familiar parts of the fairy tale. Mice help with Cinderella’s transformation, a pumpkin becomes her carriage, the slipper is central to the search for the mysterious dancer, and the wand represents the magic that prepares her for the ball. In the visual version of the board, the slipper appeared as a high-heeled shoe and the other references were represented by illustrations rather than simply printed words.
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Blue: POPEYE
ANCHOR, CAP, PIPE, SPINACH
These objects and foods evoke Popeye the Sailor. The anchor and cap establish his nautical identity, the pipe is one of his signature visual props, and spinach is the food traditionally associated with his bursts of strength.
Purple: MS. PAC-MAN
BOW, CHERRIES, GHOST, PELLETS
The final group refers to Ms. Pac-Man and its arcade imagery. The character wears a bow, cherries are a recognizable bonus fruit, ghosts pursue the player through the maze, and pellets are the dots eaten during play. This was the hardest group for many solvers because the tiles were individual game references rather than four ordinary words with an obvious shared definition.
Why the October 31 puzzle was tricky
Most Connections boards ask you to group printed words, but #873 required a two-step process: first identify what each illustration represented, then determine which character connected four of those references. That made the board feel different even though it still used the standard four-groups-of-four format.
Rank #3
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Several tiles could also pull your attention toward the wrong category. For example, BEAR might initially look like a general animal, while SPINACH is simply a food until it is paired with Popeye’s other signature references. CHERRIES and GHOST become much more specific when considered alongside PELLETS and BOW.
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- Recognize the Goldilocks references: bear, bed, chair, and porridge.
- Use the pumpkin, slipper, mouse, and wand to complete Cinderella.
- Pair spinach with the sailor imagery to find Popeye.
- Leave the arcade references—bow, cherries, ghost, and pellets—for Ms. Pac-Man.
The category names were therefore not literal descriptions of the objects. GOLDILOCKS, CINDERELLA, POPEYE, and MS. PAC-MAN were the cultural references that linked each set of four tiles.
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How NYT Connections works
In a standard Connections puzzle, you divide 16 items into four groups of four. Select four items and submit them together. If the group is correct, it disappears and is assigned one of four colors:
- Yellow: generally the most straightforward connection.
- Green: usually a moderate step up in difficulty.
- Blue: often more specialized or indirect.
- Purple: typically the most difficult or wordplay-heavy connection.
An incorrect submission costs a life. Players have four mistakes available before the puzzle ends, so it is often better to identify a likely group and then test whether each of its four members belongs together before submitting.
The complete visual tile list
The 16 intended answer words in this edition were:
GHOST, PUMPKIN, BOW, BED, ANCHOR, BEAR, MOUSE, CHERRIES, CHAIR, PELLETS, SLIPPER, CAP, PIPE, PORRIDGE, SPINACH, and WAND.
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Some players may remember seeing illustrations instead of these exact words—for example, a high-heeled shoe for SLIPPER, a can with a leaf for SPINACH, or a symbol representing PELLETS. Those visual tiles still correspond to the answer words listed above.
Want more screen-free Connections-style puzzles?
If you enjoyed the character-recognition twist in this visual edition, The New York Times Games: Puzzle Mania! is a natural physical option to investigate. It is a 224-page hardcover collection containing analog versions of several New York Times digital games, including Connections, along with other puzzles and trivia. Availability, price, and retailer stock can change, so check those details before buying. This is a commercial recommendation, and it should not be taken to mean that the book contains puzzle #873 specifically.
A dedicated Connections hardcover from The New York Times Games and Wyna Liu has also been announced with more than 100 puzzles, exclusive puzzles, behind-the-scenes material, and variations on the 4-by-4 format. Its listed publication date is October 27, 2026; availability and any purchasing options should be rechecked if you are reading this before or around that date.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What were the answers to NYT Connections #873?
The four answers were GOLDILOCKS, CINDERELLA, POPEYE, and MS. PAC-MAN. Their tiles were BEAR, BED, CHAIR, PORRIDGE; MOUSE, PUMPKIN, SLIPPER, WAND; ANCHOR, CAP, PIPE, SPINACH; and BOW, CHERRIES, GHOST, PELLETS, respectively.
Why did NYT Connections #873 look different?
The puzzle used illustrations or visual tiles instead of only ordinary printed words. Solvers had to identify what each image represented and then connect four references to the same character.
The Bottom Line
The answer to NYT Connections #873, published Friday, October 31, 2025, was a visual character-association puzzle: GOLDILOCKS (BEAR, BED, CHAIR, PORRIDGE), CINDERELLA (MOUSE, PUMPKIN, SLIPPER, WAND), POPEYE (ANCHOR, CAP, PIPE, SPINACH), and MS. PAC-MAN (BOW, CHERRIES, GHOST, PELLETS).
Quick Recap
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