The New York Times daily Connections puzzle for December 31st (#934) presents a mix of straightforward and deceptive groupings. This guide provides hints and the full solutions for each category: yellow, green, blue, and purple.
Daily Puzzle Overview
The Times continues to engage players with its daily brain teaser, offering a numeric scoring system via its Connections Bot. Registered users can now track their performance across multiple puzzles, including win rates, perfect scores, and streaks. This appeals to dedicated puzzle enthusiasts who enjoy tracking their progress.
Hints by Category
The puzzle’s difficulty varies; the yellow category is often the easiest, while purple can be quite challenging. Here are hints, ranked from easiest to hardest:
- Yellow: Reflects upcoming celebrations.
- Green: Relates to locations where objects vanish.
- Blue: Specifically tied to a Pennsylvania city.
- Purple: All categories begin with a form of water.
Solutions Revealed
Here are the complete answers for today’s Connections puzzle:
- Yellow: Happy New Year! – The words are ball drop, champagne flute, fireworks, and noisemaker. The connection is celebratory items for the new year.
- Green: Places Where Things Disappear – Includes Bermuda Triangle, black hole, couch cushions, and dryer. This group plays on the humor of lost items.
- Blue: Associated with Philadelphia – Consists of brotherly love, cheesesteak, Liberty Bell, and Rocky. These terms are strongly linked to the city’s culture and landmarks.
- Purple: Starting with Bodies of Water – Features bay leaf, channel surf, sea bass, and sound barrier. The link lies in each word beginning with a water-related term (“bay”, “channel”, “sea”, “sound”).
Quick Tips for Winning
To improve your Connections success rate:
- Speak the clues aloud. This helps identify potential phrasing connections.
- Avoid immediate assumptions. The puzzle creators deliberately throw off players with seemingly unrelated words.
- Break down compound words. Hidden patterns can reveal connections that are not immediately obvious.
The New York Times Connections puzzle offers a daily mental exercise that rewards analytical thinking and pattern recognition. Solving it provides a quick but satisfying challenge for casual and dedicated players alike.
