Games Like Connections: 11 Daily Grouping and Word Puzzles
Updated Oct 23, 2026 · 11 games · official links only
Connections is The New York Times grouping puzzle: sixteen words hide four categories of four, and you have four mistakes to find them, with groups running from yellow (easiest) to purple (trickiest). This list starts with puzzles that use the same sort-into-groups play on other themes, then adds daily games that test the same skill of spotting what links words or clues.
New to it? Read our Connections page, orplay Connections on its official site.
Connections: Sports Edition
The same puzzle from The Athletic, with sixteen sports names, teams and terms to sort into four groups of four, four mistakes allowed and yellow-to-purple difficulty.
Harmonies
Connections where every square is about music: songs, artists, sounds and slang in four hidden groups of four, with four mistakes. It also has an archive and lets you build your own board.
Cine2Nerdle
Grouping with movies on a grid: you swap scrambled tiles until each line reveals a hidden film, scored on how few swaps you need. It has several daily variants and an archive.
Thrice
Finding the common link, quiz style: five rounds a day, each with three clues that point to one answer, worth 3, 2 or 1 points depending on which clue you solve it on.
Strands
Another NYT daily built around a hidden theme: find themed words on a letter grid, including a spangram that spans the board. You search for words instead of sorting them.
Contexto
Works the same muscle of thinking about how words relate: you find a secret word as each guess is ranked by how close it is in meaning. Past puzzles can be played from the archive.
Spelling Bee
Another New York Times daily word game: build as many words as you can from seven honeycomb letters, always using the center letter. It is open-ended word finding rather than sorting into groups.
Wordle
The NYT's best-known daily word game: guess a five-letter word in six tries with green, yellow and gray feedback. Shorter than Connections, with one answer rather than four groups.
Bracket City
Where Connections hides links between words, The Atlantic's Bracket City hides clues inside clues: solve the innermost bracket first, and each answer drops into the clue around it until the sentence resolves.
Minute Cryptic
Built on the kind of wordplay behind Connections categories like words that hide another word: one cryptic crossword clue a day, with optional hints and a short video explaining the answer.
Waffle
A word puzzle with all the letters already on the board: swap them into place to spell six interlocking words within fifteen swaps. More about letters than meaning, but with a similar daily logic feel.
FAQ
What is the best game like Connections?
Connections: Sports Edition is the closest, since it is the same format from The Athletic with sports themes. Harmonies does the same with music, and Cine2Nerdle is a grid-based grouping puzzle about movies.
Is there a game like Connections with unlimited play?
Of the games here, only Cine2Nerdle offers play beyond the daily puzzle. Harmonies, Contexto, Bracket City and Waffle let you play past puzzles from an archive, and Harmonies also lets you build your own board.
Is there a Connections game for sports or music?
Yes. Connections: Sports Edition from The Athletic uses sports names and terms, and Harmonies uses songs, artists and other music trivia. Both use four groups of four and four mistakes.