The NY Times game Connections could become as popular as Wordle
Move over, Wordle! There’s a new daily game for us to obsess about. After testing it out in beta over the last two months, the New York Times’ new word association game, Connections, will officially join the rotation. Connections has never been formally announced or promoted before now, but it spread through word of mouth and social media. There’s even speculation about whether or not it will become as big of a cultural phenomenon as Wordle was/is.
The New York Times found instant success with Wordle. Now it might have a new hit on its hands.
A new puzzle called Connections is officially joining the newspaper’s portfolio of games this week, following a successful summer testing phase where it became the Times’ second-most played game behind Wordle despite minimal promotion. Players will see Connections appear in the Times’ Games app and in the news app under the Play tab beginning this week.
Connections, which also can be played on desktop and mobile web, is a word association game that presents players with 16 words and challenges them to group them together in four different topics. Players have four chances to solve the puzzle before losing.
Jonathan Knight, head of Games at the Times, told CNN that Connections has been in development for a year, with the games team concocting the idea at a “Game Jam” (think: a hackathon, but for games). After some fine tuning of the idea, Connections launched in beta in June with the puzzle only being findable via search or in the menu of other games
It was an instant hit, with millions of people playing it weekly, Knight said. Connections is “very approachable, and it’s very easy to understand.” The puzzle is also one of the Times’ “most editorially driven games” with the Connections’ editor purposely thinking of clever words that might appear to be grouped together but actually aren’t related.
“It’s that human-made component with the puzzle-constructor going up against them everyday and trying to outwit them as they try to outwit you,” Knight said. “I think that is kind of magic.”
Players won’t see any changes to Connections once it leaves beta on Monday, a sign that it “resonated with people right away,” Knight said. The only tweak the Times made to the game was clarifying the instructions during the two-month beta period.
I started playing Connections sometime during 4th of July week after seeing some friends on Twitter X posting their embedded results. Wordle (and all of its variants) will always have my heart, but I really enjoy playing Connections. I find it more challenging because it makes me think in a different way than I usually do when playing these types of games. I’ve only not gotten Wordle a handful of times over the last 18 months (#humblebrag), but I consistently do not get all four Connections at least twice a week. Is anyone else playing and finding it challenging? I’ve also gotten into Cryptic Crossword puzzles over the last year or so, which I love, but find really tough.
Anyway, do I think that Connections will overtake Wordle? Probably not. There was something really fun and special about that OG Wordle magic back in late 2021/early 2022 when it blew up. It brought friends, family, and social media acquaintances together! I don’t think anything’s going to dethrone the Beatles of web-based word games anytime soon. My prediction is that Connections will end up being the Olivia Rodriguez to Wordle’s Taylor Swift, and I 100% mean that as a compliment.
Photos credit: Ghen Mar Cuano and Bruce Mars on Unsplash, Cottonbro studios on Pexels
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