If you’re struggling with Tuesday’s Connections, Newsweek is here to lend a helping hand.
The popular puzzle was launched by The New York Times in June 2023 and has gone on to become the newspaper’s second-most played game behind Wordle, another word-based puzzle.
Below are instructions on how to play and clues to help you solve the game, but the answers appear at the end of the article, so scroll with caution.
How To Play ‘Connections’
The rules of Connections are simple enough to understand. To start, players are given a table of 16 words, which they must divide into four groups of four based on common characteristics.
Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which also signifies their difficulty level. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green, blue and purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep players challenged.
Players have up to four chances to guess incorrectly before the game ends. There’s no time constraint, so no need to rush things. You can also shuffle the words on the board to help spot connections you might have missed initially.
Wyna Liu, a crossword editor at The New York Times who was asked to develop Connections, told Newsweek about her top tips for playing the game.
“My best piece of advice is to wait as long as you can before guessing,” she said.
“You may see the board and have completely identified the category, seeing five words that could belong in that category,” she continued. “Don’t try to guess the four words in that category because even though you know what the fifth member is, you won’t know which of the four it might not be,” which would ultimately waste a turn.
‘Connections’ #562 Clues for Tuesday, December 24
Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out today’s Connections categories.
Yellow: Famous line from a movie about the Wicked Witch of the West.
Green: Words that describe a warm friendship.
Blue: These words could be letters when there is more than one of them.
Purple: Songs with the same word in the title that appears more than once.
‘Connections’ #562 Answers for Tuesday, December 24
Yellow Category: “LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!”
Yellow Words: Bears, Lions, Oh My, Tigers
Green Category: BELOVED AS A FRIEND
Green Words: Close, Dear, Tight, Intimate
Blue Category: WORDS THAT SOUND LIKE PLURAL LETTERS
Blue Words: Bees, Ease, Jays, Use
Purple Category: WHEN TRIPLED, HIT SONG TITLES
Purple Words: Bills, Bye, Gimme, Please
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, there will be another opportunity to crack the code tomorrow.
Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone and Newsweek will be back tomorrow with another round of hints and tips.
In the meantime, you could try your hand at Wordle—another popular game from The Times for which Newsweek also provides daily hints.
Read the full article here
