NYT Connections (2023): 16 words, four hidden categories, one shared daily puzzle

After Wordle, the NYT Games team wanted another daily word game that people would share. Connections came out of the company's internal Game Jam, where staff prototype game ideas; once the format was greenlit in 2023, crossword editor Wyna Liu was asked to make it hers.

Make the misdirect the game: 16 words group into four categories of four, with tempting wrong groups engineered in — finding the intended set is the whole puzzle.

Each day's puzzle presents 16 words that must be sorted into four groups of four sharing a hidden theme. Liu constructs category-first, keeping notebooks of category ideas and building boards whose words deliberately fit more than one group, so tempting but wrong sets sit on the board as red herrings. Solved groups are revealed in colour-coded bars — yellow easiest, then green, blue and purple hardest — and four wrong guesses end the game; the next puzzle appears at midnight, shared by every player on the same day.

Launched on June 12, 2023, Connections quickly became the second-most-played game in the NYT Games app after Wordle and a daily ritual people argued about online. On its first birthday the Times reported that 55.2 million people had finished a Connections puzzle without a single mistake in the game's first year, while its hardest puzzle of that year was solved by only 19.63% of players.

Connections launched on June 12, 2023, joining Wordle and other daily games at The New York Times. The idea, which grew out of NYT Games' internal Game Jam where staff test new game formats, was simple to state and hard to master: players receive 16 words and must sort them into four groups of four that share hidden themes.

The craft is in the construction. Editor Wyna Liu, a Times crossword editor asked to bring the game to life, starts from category ideas she keeps in notebooks, then assembles boards whose words deliberately fit more than one category, so tempting-but-wrong groups sit on the board as red herrings. Each solved group is revealed in a colour-coded bar — yellow easiest, then green, blue, and purple hardest — and four wrong guesses end the game, with the full answer shown at midnight when the next puzzle appears.

The formula worked: Connections quickly became the second-most-played game in the NYT Games app after Wordle, and players shared their battles on social media. On its first birthday the Times reported that 55.2 million people had finished a Connections puzzle without a single mistake in the game's first year — and its hardest puzzle of that year was solved by only 19.63% of players.

It treats the near-miss as the entertainment: words built to fit several categories mean players argue with the editor's choice instead of just solving quietly.

One shared puzzle a day, like Wordle, turns a solo game into a collective ritual with a built-in topic for conversation.

Colour-coded difficulty (yellow through purple) gives casual and hardcore solvers a shared frame for comparing their day.

Liu's category-first process — a notebook of ideas, then boards spun around them — makes each puzzle feel authored rather than generated.

Build the game from the trap, not the answer: deliberately overlapping categories turn every near-miss into conversation, and one shared daily puzzle keeps the audience coming back together.

Connections stayed on the daily roster long past its launch year, with Liu writing each day's board and a community forming around its hardest puzzles: players posted open letters and videos complaining about particular categories, and the editor said she loved that people cared enough to be angry. The Times fed the ritual with anniversary statistics and special puzzles, while the game's structure — sixteen words, four hidden groups, deliberate red herrings — was widely copied by imitator apps and spun off into the paper's later daily games.