Conexo
conexo.ws · Words
Almost the same puzzle under another name: sixteen words and four themed groups, built by the people who make Contexto, with a calendar for catching up on days you missed.
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Games like Connections
Connections, from The New York Times, lays out sixteen words and asks you to find four groups of four that share something. The groups are color coded from yellow, usually the plainest, to purple, which tends to hinge on wordplay. Red herrings are the point: several words seem to fit more than one group, and four mistakes end the game, so the best moment is spotting the trick before you commit.
The puzzles below were chosen for the same act of sorting or linking under pressure: grouping tiles by a hidden theme, finding the thread between clue words or rejecting decoys. Direct remakes with a new subject come first, followed by games that test the same instinct in a different shape.
The original
11 games like Connections
Closest first
Connections: Sports Edition
The New York Times · nytimes.com · Sports
The official sports version, published through The Athletic, keeps the familiar board and four groups but fills them with teams, players and sports slang, plus a timer if you want one.
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Harmonies: Music Connections
harmonies.io · Music
Applies the grouping rules to music, mixing artist nicknames and song titles into themed sets, which rewards people who know a little about a lot of genres.
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GeoConnections
geoconnections.net · Geography
Hides its groups in geography trivia such as flags, land areas and internet country codes, so knowing a bit about the map matters as much as spotting a pattern.
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Geonections
geonections.com · Geography
A visual take on grouping: the sixteen tiles are Street View photos, and each set of four comes from one country, with difficulty climbing toward the weekend.
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GnarlyQ
gnarlyq.com · Trivia
Shares the fear of the decoy: each category round mixes five right answers with traps, and you decide how many picks to bank before a wrong one costs you.
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Codenames Daily
codenames.game · Words
Reverses the job: the linking clue and a count are given to you, and you pick out which of the sixteen cards it describes, where a single bad tap finishes the round.
Circuits
Puzzmo · puzzmo.com · Words
Each blank needs a word that connects with every neighbor it touches, forming compounds or phrases, which exercises the same link-spotting as a tricky purple group.
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Daily Analogy
dailyanalogy.com · Words
Five analogies with two words missing from each, submitted as one set, test the relationship-spotting behind Connections in a slower, more deliberate form.
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Catfishing
catfishing.net · Trivia
The links here come from Wikipedia category tags, and you work backward from a handful of them to the article they belong to, ten times a day.
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Minute Cryptic
minutecryptic.com · Words
A single cryptic clue a day, good practice for the puns, hidden words and sound-alikes that so often sit behind the purple group.
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Questions
Is Connections free, and when does it reset?
Connections is free to play on the New York Times website and in its Games app. A new board arrives at midnight in your local time, and every player gets the same sixteen words that day. The puzzles are edited by Wyna Liu, which is part of why the groups have a recognizable style of misdirection.
What do the four colors mean in Connections?
The colors mark difficulty. Yellow is meant to be the most straightforward group, followed by green, then blue, with purple the hardest, often relying on wordplay such as hidden words, homophones or words that complete a phrase. You do not have to solve yellow first; many players clear the group they are surest of to shrink the pool of possible decoys.
Are there Connections games for specific interests?
Yes. Connections: Sports Edition uses sports terms, Harmonies sticks to music, and GeoConnections and Geonections stay with geography, the second using photos instead of words. If the purple groups are your favorite part, Minute Cryptic and Circuits drill the wordplay side on their own.
