The New York Times offers everyone quite a few addicting — yet educational — word games. “Connections” is among the most popular, and we’ve got the hints and final solution to the puzzle for today, January 12, 2025. Since the answer is usually a tough code to crack, we know the frustration that comes with playing the game!
Below, see our hints and the answer to today’s “Connections” game.
How to Play ‘Connections’
“Connections” starts with a set of 16 words in a grid. Players — who can access the game on The New York Times‘ website — must separate the words into four related groups. The difficulty of each category is marked in different colors: yellow, green, blue and purple. Yellow is the easiest one, and purple is considered the most difficult one.
After a player selects each group’s four related words, they click “submit.” Upon submission, it should become the category’s color if it’s correct.
‘Connections’ January 11 Hints
The following are our hints for today’s “Connections” puzzle:
- The yellow group can be a made-up story or a lie.
- The green group can be related to dating, or simply when a person can move another one emotionally.
- The blue group is video games.
- The purple group points to something that is on the end of an object, a person or an animal.
“Connections” editor Wyna Liu is well aware of the massive frustration that players have when they can’t solve a day’s puzzle. But it can’t be an easy game to create. While speaking with Slate in July 2024, Liu described the process behind developing each puzzle for the publication.
“The process is I have a notebook where I keep down category ideas. And when I sit down to make boards, I’ll take one of those ideas, I’ll take those words, and then I’ll start spinning off of them,” Liu said at the time. “And then, the boards will be built from that, and sometimes it goes in surprising directions. I feel like that’s sort of one of the most joyful things about making games. I don’t know what the categories are gonna be. I start with like a seed. And then I’m just like, ‘Oh, what does this word do?,’ and then maybe like a dozen categories of possibilities and then you kind of see if any of those words are playing off each other, and the brain builds from that.”
What Is the ‘Connections’ January 12 Answer?
The answer to today’s “Connections” game is:
- Yellow group: fabrication (FAIRY TALE, FANTASY, FICTION, INVENTION)
- Green group: woo (CHARM, COURT, PURSUE, ROMANCE)
- Blue group: classic Atari games (ASTEROIDS, BREAKOUT, CENTIPEDE, DEFENDER)
- Purple group: things featuring tails (COIN TOSS, COMETS, DRESS COAT, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG)
