A partially completed game of Connections from March 12, 2024. The remaining answers are: "Also, And, Plus, With" in green for "Including", and "Daddy, Harlem, Howl, If" in purple for "Famous poems".
In Connections, the goal is to divide a grid of sixteen words into four groups of four such that the words in each group belong to a specific category (e.g., "dog", "cat", "fish", and "parrot" for the category "Household Pets").[4] The categories may involve wordplay such as palindromes or homophones, increasing the difficulty.[5] When a player successfully identifies a group, its category is revealed along with a color-coded difficulty level: categories are rated yellow, green, blue, or purple, with yellow being the most straightforward and purple being the most difficult. Each Connections game has one category from each difficulty level.[5]
The games department of the Times hosts an annual game jam in which participants suggest ideas for upcoming games to release to the website.[7] Connections had been in development for a year before releasing in its beta phase on June 12, 2023.[1][8]Wyna Liu, editor of the Times and Connections's puzzles, was inspired by cartoonist Robert Leighton, who made puzzles involving wordplay.[9]
Several people associated with Only Connect, a British television quiz show, have commented on the similarity between Connections and the Connecting Wall segment of the program.[10][11][12]
On September 24, 2024, The Athletic, in partnership with The New York Times Games, launched a sports edition of Connections in beta. The sports edition features the same gameplay as the regular version, with each grouping sports-themed.[13][14]
