How To Play Connections

Connections is the second-most popular NYT Games puzzle game outside of the main crossword itself, and an extremely fun, free offering that will get your brain moving every day. Play it right here.

The goal is to take a group of 16 words and find links between four pairs of four of them. They could be specific categories of terms, or they could be little world puzzles where words may come before or after them you need to figure out. And they get more complicated from there.

There is only one set of right answers for this, and you only get a certain number of tries so you can’t just spam around until you find something. There are difficulty tiers coded by color, which will usually go from yellow, blue/green to purple as difficulty increases, so know that going in and when you start linking them together.

You pick the four words you think are linked and either you will get a solve and a lit up row that shows you how you were connected. If you’re close, it will tell you that you’re one away. Again, four mistakes you lose, but if you want to know the answers without failing, either come here, or delete your web cookies and try again. If you want to play more puzzles, you can get an NYT Games subscription to access the full archives of all past puzzles.

NYT Connections Hints And Answers – Sunday, June 28

Below, we’ll get into some extra hints for each Connections group – Yellow, Blue, Green and Purple – and then the official clues and answers.

Here are today’s Connections words:

• corporation
• start
• fine
• darts
• strap
• prime
• begin
• chess
• slide
• now
• surfer
• pick
• go
• capo
• choice
• select

Here’s an Extra Hint for Each Connections Group

• 🟡Yellow group – Think of tiers of steak, for instance.
• 🔵Blue group – Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton etc. might have had these items
• 🟢Green group – At the outset of a race, for example
• 🟣Purple group – These four words each possess the same thing (though some are more literal and each functions quite differently)

One Word for Each Connections Group:

• 🟡Yellow group – Choice
• 🔵Blue group – Pick
• 🟢Green group – Now
• 🟣Purple group – Surfer

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Alright, the full spoilers follow here as we get into what the groups are today:

• 🟡Yellow group – High-Quality
• 🔵Blue group – Accessories for a guitarist
• 🟢Green group – Signals to commence
• 🟣Purple group – They have boards

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

The full-on answers are below for each group, finally inserting the four words in each category. Spoilers follow. The Connections answers are:

• 🟡Yellow group – Choice, Fine, Prime, Select
• 🔵Blue group – Capo, Pick, Slide, Strap
• 🟢Green group – Begin, Go, Now, Start
• 🟣Purple group – Chess, Corporation, Darts, Surfer

Here’s the finished grid:

Today’s NYT Connections was a 2/5 on the Connections Bot difficulty scale but it felt harder than that to me. I struggled with yellow because I was thinking of the act of choosing. Making a CHOICE, or SELECTing something, which led me to PICK (a very nefarious red herring!) I also was thrown off by the Green group because of the word NOW which felt quite different from the others. Fortunately, once I had the Green words, I was able to pick out the Blue words quite quickly.

It’s always a bit odd to solve Purple before Yellow, but today I was able to make the connection between CHESS and DARTS each having a board, and from there it was just a little scrounging around to deduce that SURFERs and CORPORATIONs also had boards. Many things have boards, as it happens. Go figure.

How’d you do on today’s Connections? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Find more guides to Wordle, Pips and Strands on my blog where you can also follow me for TV and movie and video game coverage. Let me know if you have any fun puzzle games in your rotation that I should try on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Have a great Sunday!