It's Game Time: Five New York Times games each bring unique, or disappointing, experiences to gameplay

Wordle is like the McDonald’s of fast food chains. The QuikTrip of gas stations. And definitely the Monopoly of board games.

You can’t possibly begin playing the New York Times games without a go-at-your-own-pace, word-focused game like Wordle. The game centers around guessing one five-letter word in six attempts — for those of you who haven’t visited the internet in the past five years.

Wordle’s by far my favorite NYT game. I love that the simple, word guessing puzzle can form a community around interactions like “Did you get the Wordle today?” or “The Wordle was so impossible!” Because everyone’s Wordle is the same across the world, suddenly this 5-letter word becomes a unifying factor in everyone’s day.

The simplicity of Wordle is what gives the guessing game its strength. In fact, the game could hypothetically even be played with a pen and napkin at a coffee shop or the airport. The best games are those that don’t need a fancy setup or specific pieces. And Wordle fits just these requirements. 

Step aside old-fashioned mazes and Hangman. Connections is here to win the hearts of teenagers and retirees alike. When one clicks on Connections in the NYT app, they’re presented with 16 words, and have to sort them into four categories. Each category has varying levels of difficulty, signified by their color. 

I’m a self-proclaimed Connections master. However, the infamous purple category — the hardest one — always stumps me. Well, on some days. 

The purple category can range from “Things that are purple”  (the answers were amethyst, eggplant, grimace and lavender) on Sept. 11, 2024 to “Right” (the answer were the symbols “R”, an arrow, an angle and a checkmark) on April 1, 2025.

But I like this difference in difficulty of the purple categories. Some days I leave my puzzle-playing experience confident and proud that I guessed the hardest category first, while others I’m left defeated as I never guessed the matchings correctly. 

So if you’re up for some unexpected difficulty or pleasantly easy puzzle, the Connections is only a click away.

Long gone are the days of simple, idyllic word searches. No longer is it enough to only find a word in a scramble of the alphabet; now you have to decode a vague clue and match each word in the scramble to this clue. Strands, a modern take on the word search, is overly complicated and unnecessarily vague. 

This NYT game presents players with a 6x8 letter grid with one mysterious clue such as “Small change” or “We’re going under cover.” Then, players must find an average of seven words in the mess and one “Spangram” or word that touches opposite ends of the grid. Are you confused yet?

The pro? The clue can be interpreted in seemingly endless ways. The con? The clue can be interpreted in seemingly endless ways.

Most days, I spend my time just trying to figure out what the creators of Strands are trying to convey with their clue. Then, I’m lost in the maze of unfinished words, planted to make me fall for the creator’s trap.

Strands is just too complicated and not a game meant for coffee shop napkins. I’d rather log onto my NYT account and play Wordle any day instead. 

Pips is the latest single-player NYT game, and let’s just say the domino-style game is notmy favorite. If you’re looking for a mediocre challenge and a confusing “gameboard,” then behold Pips.

I’ll admit, I liked Pips at first. The bright colors and mathematical aspect of the game, of carefully arranging the dominoes in a pattern that fulfills all of the requirements, drew me in and the variability each day made me stay.

However, once I began to play more than just once, I quickly learned that these are all just facades for an overall shallow game. There’s no “end goal” or comparison with other players. Instead, the puzzle is set on a stopwatch to race yourself during playtime.

My favorite part of the Connections and Wordle is that I’m able to compare with other NYT game fanatics and shout in victory when I’ve guessed the word two chances before other players in Wordle or didn’t fall for the fake categories in Connections. 

So, NYT games, to keep players engaged while arranging dominoes in Pips, add friendly-competition to fuel the game. 

Ah, and finally a breath of fresh air. Now, I present you with what the NYT does best since 1942 — crossword puzzles. Just this time, they’re a little smaller. 

There’s no arguing that The Mini is a perfect way to warm up your brain in the morning before school or decompress after a stressful day of homework in bed. Structured like a typical crossword puzzle, with “across” and “down” clues, The Mini is simply a petite version — approximately only six by six squares. 

As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Mini engages players as the clock runs at the top of the screen throughout gameplay. When I finally muster up the courage to click the black “play” button on my screen, I enter (hopefully) 30 seconds of a mad frenzy to complete all the clues.

And the ultimate punishment? Clicking the “Reveal Puzzle” button, unveiling my many mistakes, in defeat after I’ve taken an embarrassing amount of time to complete the small square. 

So, The Mini easily encapsulates what the NYT games are all about — simplicity, time management and quick thinking — in a digestible size and player-friendly difficulty.  

And let’s be honest, there’s nothing better than hearing the chime play when you finish a puzzle with 84 years of history behind it.