It is June 15. Puzzle #1100. The NYT Connections game doesn’t sleep, neither do its fans. If you need help with the Mini Crossword or Strands today, that’s a separate rabbit hole, but here we deal with color.
Today’s grid had teeth. I stuck on the blue section until the lightbulb flickered. Once it did? Click. It made sense. That’s how these things work. You stare at four words that feel related but aren’t until suddenly they are.
The Hints
“Keep at it.”
“Prep to party.”
“Year of the goat.”
“Blooming buds.”
The hints range from obvious to cryptic. The yellow one gives little away. The purple one smells like a garden. Usually the easier ones are first. Here? No. The progression feels right though. Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple. Standard procedure for a Tuesday.
The Answers
Yellow — The easy wins. Staying power. The words are legs, momentum, stamina, and traction. They all describe how long something lasts or how much grip it has. Simple. Clean. Get it out of the way.
Green — Getting dressed up. The theme is prepping for a night out. Accessorize. Change. Primp. Shower. It’s the routine. The ritual before the lights dim and the music starts. You wash. You dress. You add jewelry. You leave.
Blue — The zodiac. Not just any zodiac, though. Chinese zodiac. Animals that represent the years. The answers? Dog. Dragon. Horse. Snake. You might have seen a rat or a pig and gotten distracted, but those four belong here.
Purple — The tricky bit. Flowers. But not Rose. Not Tulip. Weaker signals. The answers are Anemone. Larkspur. Monkshood. Phlox. Do you know a larkspur from a monkshood at a glance? Maybe not. These aren’t the first flowers you name in elementary school. Which is the point.
The Data Geeks
Do you play just to win? Or to watch a bot dissect your brain? The Times has a Connection bot, mirroring Wordle. You finish. It grades you. If you’re signed into Games, you get stats. Win streak. Perfect scores. The number of puzzles conquered. Some people love this. Others think tracking your progress turns a game into a chore. I get both sides. Numbers are nice until they become anxiety.
“Follow your progress, including… win streak.”
The Hall of Fame Pain
Today was good? Compared to the legends of difficulty? Nothing.
We’ve archived the ones that break minds. Check your memory:
Those are brutal. Today’s flower puzzle was polite. You can usually leave before you feel insulted by it. Which isn’t always true in life.
