Not the Kojima Game; Strands, NYT Games

Ever since the new game Strands has been added to the New York Times Games (NYTG) list, I’ve played it daily along with Connections, Wordle, and The Mini; the free games. Here’s an update so far.

Strands

Newest game that I am a fan of. A word search style type game, where as long as the letters touch they can be used–but only once. A new theme is given every day with a new list of letters to comb through. They let you know how many words you are looking for, with one key word that groups the other words, related to the theme.  For example, the theme was “Staying power” and the key word, usually two words that stretch from one side of the list to the other, was “Sticky stuff.” All other words were things that could be used to stick things together, such as “glue” or “tape.” If you’re having trouble figuring out the hidden words, you can still attempt to spell out random words, and once three random words are found, you can ask for a hint.

This game speaks to me. I am personally a fan of finding connections to things in general, like finding easter eggs and references in media. A game based around finding words connected to a special theme, sign me up. Speaking of, let’s talk about another NYTG with a similar style.

Connections

Now when I first took a look at this game, I was intrigued. A 4x4 board of sixteen words, that relate to each other. The trick is, you’re trying to figure out a set of four words that relate to each other, four times. The idea behind this game I enjoy, but I dislike that you’re only allowed four mistakes to find the sets.

When playing this game, I either get a perfect score or lose miserably. Usually when you get stuck, you get a hint when you have three out of four words correct in a set; they just don’t tell you which word is incorrect. If this pops up for me, I either get it correct on my next try, or a black hole of mistakes take place back to back to back. Why not give unlimited tries? You can add a give up button for those who no longer want to keep trying, and instead of counting mistakes they can keep track of how many guesses it took to complete the sets. If someone gets it done in four tries, perfect score. This way, I can keep trying when stuck on a specific set instead of using all my chances at once. Now there’s one game that gets a pass on limiting your number of tries.

Wordle

The game of the pandemic. If you don’t know the rules, you try to guess the five letter word in six tries. Each day is a new word that has not been used, so no repeats. This game is acceptable when limiting your number of tries because they tell you if the letter used is in the word or not, giving you a hint each guess. Green if the letter is in the correct spot, yellow if the letter is in the word but wrong spot, and grey if not used. Connections just tells you if one of the four words does not match and that’s it. That’s brutal.

My strategy each day is to start with “Whack.” If no letters are used, then I go with “Quiet.” Have these words already been used for the word of the day? Maybe, I don’t know. I could look it up but I don’t care. I’ve solved it on my first try during the pandemic so I don’t care if I get it again. What I dislike, is how the word of the day can use multiple of the same letter. Now if it’s one letter used twice–fine, I’ll deal with it, but if it’s two letters used twice–that’s messed up. And if you don’t think they do this, the word for July 31st 2024 was “Penne.” They need to add another color if a letter is in it twice, like blue or orange. Or both, make blue the color if they used the letter in the correct spot, but it’s a double letter so they know to use it again. Orange, to tell them the spot is wrong and the letter is repeated in the word. New York Times did not make this game themselves, but they own it now. They can make updates to make it easier for new players. If you’re worried about people complaining with these new colors, then make it an optional feature.

The Mini

So I give this a try every day, but I don’t expect to figure it out. The Mini is literally a small crossword puzzle. I put in the words I know and any research I do, I try to search in a roundabout way that doesn’t just copy the question/hint. For instance, they asked for specific keys on the keyboard. Instead of looking up what is the top most left key on a keyboard, I would look up an image of a keyboard and look for myself. Now I knew the answer right away, but that’s an example of how I try to solve these with my own hints. If I can’t solve it, no biggie.

Sudoku

Now for those who have read a couple of my other posts, I was into Sudoku. I still like it, but I don’t try to speed run easy mode any more…daily. I still like to give it a try, but that’s it. My fastest time, without using Auto Candidate Mode, the easy hint mode for the game, is still at 2:32, posted on my Twitter/X account. I’ve done it with Auto Candidate Mode and could solve it less than a minute, so instead I try this mode with medium and hard and its pretty fun. I think when I got more into writing, I started leaning more towards the word based games. Nothing wrong with that, feelings change. I will still think fondly of Sudoku and know that I will come back to the game, maybe not in NYTG but at least a version of it.

Others

Spelling Bee I gave up playing after realizing they block you if you don’t pay. Letter Boxed wasn’t my jam and Tiles was very simple. I enjoyed Tiles early on but becomes repetitively easy if you play daily. The Crossword is behind a paywall so never tried, but I just assume it’s a bigger version of The Mini.

Will I ever pay for this app? Probably not. I won’t leave a review score since I don’t have access to all the features. What if they start putting the games I enjoy like Strands behind a paywall? Honestly, I would probably slowly fade away from the app altogether. I am content with how the games are…but they could be better.