Connections
Find the hidden word groups
Sixteen words sit in a grid. Four of them share a category, and so do the next four, and the next, until all sixteen are sorted. The difficulty is deliberate overlap: several words look like they belong in two groups at once, and only one arrangement works for all sixteen.
How to play
Playing Connections
- 1
Read all sixteen words first, then tap four tiles that you think share a category.
- 2
Submit the selection; a correct group locks in and clears those four words from the grid.
- 3
Tap a selected tile again to deselect it, so you can swap a word out before you submit.
- 4
A wrong group of four does not lock in, so those words stay on the board for another try.
- 5
Re-read the sixteen words in a different order when your eyes keep landing on the same pairs.
- 6
Solve all four groups to finish the puzzle, then swipe on to whatever comes next.
Tactics
Three ways to get better at Connections
Start where you're certain
Do not lead with the category you noticed first. Look for the four words that have only one plausible home, like proper nouns or rare terms. Locking a group you are sure of clears four words that were pulling at everything left.
Count the candidates
When a category seems to have five or six candidates, treat it as a trap rather than a group. One of those words probably belongs somewhere else. Set the category aside and solve a different one first to learn which word is borrowed.
Look past the meaning
The link is often not meaning at all. Check for words that all pair with the same second word, shorter words hidden inside longer ones, homophones, or one letter swapped into a common word.
Inside Reel Games
Connections in the swipe feed
Connections sits in the vertical feed with everything else. Swipe up and the grid is already there, with no loading screen in between. The puzzle runs on your phone, so a subway tunnel or a plane with the signal off changes nothing. Nothing interrupts a solve either: no ad rolls between rounds, ever.
Good for the ten minutes before a meeting starts.
Next up
Games like this one
They are all in the same app, so trying one costs a swipe.
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Guess the word before time runs out
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Fill the grid with perfect logic
Connections is one of 47
Free to download, no ads, and the whole library keeps working when your signal does not.