Over a year and a half ago, Wordle took the Internet by storm. This week, The New York Times, which bought this word game for at least 1 million euros at the time, launched a new word puzzle. After a probationary period, the newspaper appears to have achieved another success.
A new word puzzle in the Times is called “Communications.” The game launched quietly this summer, but it’s only now joined the lineup of official games. During that trial period, Connections was launched millions of times a week. Without having to run a major campaign, it quickly became the newspaper’s second most talked about game – after Wordle, of course.
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Like Wordle, Connections is a word puzzle. This time it’s an association game. The newspaper gives you 16 words at a time. The goal is to group four times four words that belong together. For example, the words “paintbrush,” “easel,” “brush,” and “canvas” belong together, because they’re all things to paint with. But often the association is also more complex than that. For example, recently the word “saw” was placed next to the word “cloud”, because both objects have “teeth”. You can make a maximum of four fouls. Didn’t you find the word then? Then the game is over. Just like with Wordle, you can only complete the Connections puzzle once per day. Proven formula makes the game more addictive.
“accessible”
According to Jonathan Knight, head of gaming at The New York Times, they’ve been working on “connections” for over a year. “He is very friendly and easy to understand,” Knight explains success. In addition, an editor is appointed whose task is to think or synthesize clever words. “This human element” makes the game more “magical”, according to Knight.
