Morgan McMurrin
·6 min read
No matter how old you are, you’re never too old for games, especially word-themed ones. There’s something fun and challenging about them that keeps you coming back for more. However, over the decades, games haven’t had the mainstream popularity that they once did, until recently, thanks to the New York Times (NYT) gameConnections, which came out in 2023 and helped relaunch the era of puzzle games.
If you’ve never heard of it, Connections is a combination between a word search, a crossword and logic. It's a daily brain teaser where players are tasked with unraveling the correlation between a grid of 16 words by choosing four words that have a common thread between them and grouping them together. The challenge is that most of the time, several of the words displayed can fit into multiple categories, and at times, they can appear as though they belong with each other, though they actually won’t be part of the final groupings at all. Because of this, the game is not simple as it appears and instead, is tricky and confusing, which is why people are obsessed with it.
If you’re a word game addict and would like to try other puzzle games that are similar to Connections, you’re in luck! We rounded up not one, but 15 others, below. They all have pieces to them that resemble the game, making them great alternatives for you to play. Check them out!
Related:The 26 Funniest NYT Connections Game Memes You'll Appreciate if You Do This Daily Word Puzzle
15 Games Like Connections
1. Wordle
This popular word game gives a player six chances to correctly guess a five-letter word. While it may seem easy to do if you’ve never played it, you’ll find yourself surprised by how difficult it can actually be. Overall, the game is thrilling, challenging and a great way to enhance your vocab.
2. Spelling Bee
You’ll put your brain to the ultimate spelling test with this NYT game that challenges you to come up with as many words as you possibly can with only seven letters. It starts off easy and gets harder each level.
3. Slither Link
No, this is not a Harry Potter related word game. Instead, Slither Link is a logic-based game where players are tasked with attempting to draw a single loop through a grid by connecting adjacent dots with a straight link. To help them achieve this, they get numerical hints to help them out.
4. Dabble
Each player gets 20 tiles for this word game. Then, in the course of five minutes, you must try to come up with one two-letter word, one three-letter word, one four-letter word, one five-letter word and one six-letter word.
5. PuzzGrid
PuzzGrid is time sensitive and only gives you three minutes to solve each puzzle. Each puzzle is inspired by the connecting walls from a BBC game show called Only Connect. You can choose from thousands of user-grids or platform-generated ones.
6. Bananagrams
This physical game is fun for the whole family. It’s like Scrabble, but sped up. To play Bananagrams, each person must quickly create their own word grid using all of their letter tiles. Once someone is finished, they shout out “peel” and everyone then has to grab a new title. The game keeps going until there are no tiles left and whoever uses all of theirs first, wins.
7. Red Herring
In this game, there are 25 puzzles with three difficulty levels. The goal when playing Red Herring is to group words into different categories without making a mistake. While the task at hand is hard to achieve, that’s what also makes players addicted to it.
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8. Phrazle
Instead of guessing categories like in Connections, while playin Phrazle, you're guessing a phrase. You have six attempts to guess it and each guess must use valid words and use all spaces. After each guess, the color of the tiles will change to show how close you are to the actual phrase.
9. Dordle
If you’re familiar with Wordle, this game is similar. However, Dordle has a small twist—you have to guess two words simultaneously. Hard, right? The best part is, each day it’s updated so players always have a new and challenging wordplay experience to look forward to after they finish one game.
10. Crossword Puzzles
When it comes to word games, you can’t forget about this classic one. Each crossword challenges the person who’s playing it to fill in all of the white boxes with letters that intersect at different points. To do this, you have to correctly solve the clues, which will either result in words or phrases that perfectly fit in the empty boxes that make up the crossword.
The NYT has a mini crossword that you can play online each day too.
Related:324 Best Trivia Questions and Answers to Jumpstart Your Fun Game Night
11. Play Four
There are eight different words you have to guess in this mini crossword puzzle. Clues are given for each one and then players are scored by the amount of moves and time it takes for them to complete each puzzle. How fun is that?
12. Boggle
Talk about a throwback. This physical word game has been around forever and can be played alone or with a group of people. There are 16 letter cubes, which you shake up and spill onto a table. Then, you have 90 seconds to create as many words as you can using the letting facing up on the grid. The catch is, if two or more players find the same word, that word doesn’t count. After each round, the scores are tallied up.
WordShake and Boggle With Friendsare a couple of virtual options as well.
13. Typeshift
In Typeshift, there are various letters in which a player can move up or down in order to form words in a central row. To win, they must use every letter in each column at least once. Are you up for the challenge?
Related:250 Best 'Would You Rather' Questions To Learn More About Friends Than You Ever Expected
14. Sudoku
This well-known game doesn’t involve words, but numbers instead. However, that doesn’t make it any less hard to solve. To win, a player must fill their grid with digits, making sure that no number they write down repeats itself in the same column or row.
You can buy sudoku books, find online puzzles or play daily via the NYT.
15. Semantle
Semantle is all about uncovering words on each level of the game where you have to guess the secret word with the help of clues. The fewer attempts it takes you to guess right, the more points you get.
Next:15 Games Like Wordle To Give You Your Word Game Fix More Than Once Every 24 Hours
