‘Connections’ January 18: Hints and answers to puzzle #587

To hold one Connections win streak going can be quite a trying task, so you’ve come to the right place if you need some helpful hints and tips.

The brain tension was launched by New York Times in June 2023 and has gone on to become the newspaper’s second most played match afterwards Wordleanother word based puzzle game.

Connections challenges players to uncover threads that connect a series of words. Instructions on how to play the game are below. Clues and the answers to today’s puzzle are towards the end of the article.

This is how you play Connections

Connections tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, a recent game linked the words “Autoharp,” “Contrabass,” “Pepperoni” and “Rosebud” under the category “Ending With Beer Brands.”

Each of the four categories is marked with a color which also indicates their degree of difficulty. Yellow is the easiest category followed by green, blue and purple. The puzzles are rarely straightforward and use homophones and puns to keep the players challenged.

The familiarity of the words used and how often they appear in modern life are also factors of difficulty, although less common words are not only used in the more difficult categories. “Overlap”, where a word can be linked to multiple categories, is another way Connections testing players.

If stuck, players can press the shuffle button, which will shuffle where the words appear on the screen.

Wyna Liu, a crossword editor at New York Times which was asked to develop Connectionstold Newsweek on her top tips for playing the game.

“My best advice is to wait as long as you can before you guess,” she said.

“You might look at the board and have completely identified the category, and see five words that could belong in that category,” Liu continued. “Don’t try to guess the four words in that category, because even if you know what the fifth member is, you won’t know which of the four it might not be,” which would ultimately waste a turn.

“Don’t do what I do, which is ‘rage solve,'” Liu said.

The answers for today Connections puzzles will be revealed at the end of this article, so scroll with caution if you want to figure them out yourself.

‘Connections’ #587 Clues for Saturday January 18th

Newsweek have some tips to help you figure out today’s Connections categories.

Yellow: These words describe a strong desire to do or have something.

Green: Each of these answers is a term that describes a sharp projection.

Blue: For these answers, think about what you can see on vinyl.

Purple: These words each create a sentence when they follow two words.

‘Connections’ #587 Reply for Saturday, January 18th

Yellow Category: DESIRE

Yellow words: Drive, impulse, itch, urge

Green Category: BARB

Green words: Spine, Spur, Sticker, Thorn

Blue Category: INFO ABOUT A RECORD

Blue words: Album, artist, label, track

Purple Category: TURN THE ___

Purple words: Corner, Page, Tables, Tide

Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, there will be another opportunity to beat the puzzle tomorrow.

Connections published at midnight in your local time zone. Newsweek returns with another round of hints and tips for each new game.