Since launching in June 2023, Connections has become a New York Times hit. But the viral mobile game is not always easy to complete and some puzzles are more fiendish than others.
So if you are struggling with today’s game and need a few tips and tricks to complete it, look no further, Newsweek is here to help.
How to Play Connections
In Connections, players are tasked with grouping together words by matching them by theme or categories. There are 16 words in the game in total, and each group of words is separated into four categories.
The board has a color-coding system representing levels of difficulty. Yellow is the easiest, then green, blue and purple. A group’s color is revealed once the words in a group have been correctly connected.
The themes that unite the words come from a broad range of categories, including types of sounds, food and basically anything else you can imagine. If all four words are correctly placed into each set, the words will be removed from the board until all the words are removed.
Players can shuffle and rearrange the board if they want to try to make the process of guessing the connections easier. But be careful, players can only make four mistakes in total before the game ends.
Times’ puzzle editor Wyna Liu previously said that the categories’ difficulty varies with each daily edition.
“Some categories might be defined by their use of wordplay—palindromes, homophones, adding or dropping letters and words—rather than the literal meanings of the words on the cards. I identified three areas where difficulty could be adjusted: the familiarity of the words, the ambiguity of their categorization, and the variety of the wordplay,” she said.
Liu added that she toyed with different ways to make Connections more of a challenge.
“There would have to be a mix of categories for the game to feel challenging and satisfying,” she said in the Times. “Some categories might be defined by their use of wordplay—palindromes, homophones, adding or dropping letters and words—rather than the literal meanings of the words on the cards.”
Newsweek has compiled some hints for today’s game below, so be warned, there are spoilers ahead.
AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert
Connections #378 Clues for Sunday, July 7
Yellow: All the words relate to changing the states of matter.
Green: These words all relate to replacing someone or something.
Blue: These are all slang words for something specific.
Purple: All the words are hits by a famous singer.
‘Connections’ #378 Answers for Sunday, July 7
Yellow Category: “Change states of matter”
Yellow Words: Condense, Freeze, Melt, Vaporize
Green Category: Replacement
Green Words: Alternate, Backup, Cover, Sub
Blue Category: Slangy names for professions
Blue Words: Copper, Hack, Shrink, Suit
Purple Category: Mariah Carey number one hits
Purple Words: Fantasy, Hero, Honey, Someday
That’s another game completed. Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone. Newsweek will be back tomorrow, with another round of hints and tips for each new game.
If you are still craving some quiz action, why not also try the Times’ most-played word game, Wordle?
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
