Connections

I won't pretend like this isn't really frustrating sometimes, but overall this is an excellent game. Simple, but a nice, moderate challenge. Sometimes it's a breeze, sometimes it's obnoxiously hard, but most of the time it's a pretty fun and fair puzzle that really has you digging around your brain for all the cultural, scientific, etc. knowledge you've built up without getting too specific and niche with, like, Trivia games. Sometimes it throws you an overly niche category but if you can figure out the other three rows, you can get by without needing to know every part of it. And it's pretty satisfying to get some of the trickier ones that aren't based on dictionary definitions. I also love when they have music-related categories as a blue or purple row because it often makes it much easier given that's my area of nerd knowledge.

I also like Crossword puzzles for providing a similar brain digging challenge, but I like how this is a bit more freeform by not even giving you any prompts to begin with; you have to figure them out yourself. Pretty satisfied with having this as my only regular NYT puzzle, at least for now. Maybe I'll get into NYT Mini Crosswords; I've done a few but never felt compelled to keep doing them. They absolutely struck gold here, no wonder it's their second most popular game after Wordle now (despite minimal promotion, apparently!). I prefer it to Wordle, too, which was fun for a few days but it just wore off. Connections has me thinking about sixteen different words and how they relate, whereas Wordle is just the hunt for one five-letter word and it got repetitive for me.

Also worth mentioning that this is a riff off of something the British already did with Only Connect, but it's clearly different enough because NYT's version is noticeably more accessible compared to the "deliberately difficult" (literally right from Wikipedia) boards I've seen on Only Connect. Plus, OC is on a timer and you actually have to name the categories yourself which I don't think could feasibly work in a web browser setting.

P.S. This is the New York Times so it's more American-friendly, and that's definitely good for me, but I feel bad for any international fans playing this. There was one puzzle where every square was just two letters, and it included a yellow row that was just U.S. state abbreviations. C'mon, guys...