Connections came into the world, thanks to some games masters at The New York Times.
They put their brains together in an annual brainstorming session, and Connections was born in 2021.
The puzzle is edited by Wyna Liu who told Newsweek how she comes up with four new categories every day. Liu builds the games each week from ideas she sources through daily life experiences.
“Each board has to be made from scratch,” Liu said, adding that, when she sits down to the build the week’s games, she’ll consult her notebook and spreadsheet, which is like a “digital sketchpad.”
“I usually don’t know where a board is going to go. It really does a long time to fudge things and try different angles,” Liu added.
How to Play ‘Connections’
The brainteaser tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, one game linked the words “clear,” “earn,” “make” and “net,” which all came under the category “take home, as income.”
Instructions on how to play the game are below. Clues and the answers for Thursday’s puzzle are toward the end of the article, so scroll with caution.
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 then purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep things interesting.
The uniting themes can come from a broad range of categories—anything from Halloween costumes to music genres.
If all four words are correctly placed into each set, those words will be removed from the board. Each incorrect guess counts toward the mistake tally. Up to four errors can be made before it is game over.
Players can shuffle and rearrange the board if they want to try to make the process of guessing the connections easier. To make things a bit tougher, a word can sometimes belong to more than one category—but there is only one correct answer.
‘Connections’ #592 Clues for Thursday, January 23
Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out today’s Connections categories.
Yellow: To beat or outperform someone or something.
Green: Items you need to bring with you when eating al fresco.
Blue: What Harrison Ford wore as one of his most-iconic characters.
Purple: Commander-In-Chief names if they were put into a rap or poem.
‘Connections’ #592 Answers for Thursday, January 23
Yellow Category: OUTDO
Yellow Words: Better, Eclipse, Surpass, Top
Green Category: PICNIC ACCESSORIES
Green Words: Basket, Blanket, Cooler, Utensils
Blue Category: PARTS OF AN INDIANA JONES COSTUME
Blue Words: Bomber, Fedora, Satchel, Whip
Purple Category: RHYMES U.S PRESIDENT NAMES
Purple Words: Pagan, Smarter, Vixen, Widen
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, there will be another opportunity to play the game 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 New York Times for which Newsweek also provides daily hints.
The post ‘Connections’ January 23: Answers and Hints for Puzzle #592 appeared first on Newsweek.
