The shuffle feature in NYT’s Connections can be a real game saver—or a complete failure, depending on the day and the words in question. That’s where we come in. There’s a set of helpful hints for the September 16 (#97) puzzle ready if you need them, as well as every answer for today’s game if you’d like to skip to the best bit in a few clicks. Hey, whatever works for you is fine by us.

I had a pretty good start to my Connections weekend, clearing half of today’s board without too much trouble. The other half though? I’d rather not talk about it. Wow, that was far too close for comfort.

NYT Connections hint today: Saturday, September 16

A few hints to help you join the dots if you need them.

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Yellow: Classic fairy tales will see you through this one. The sort with poisoned apples, magical beanstalks, and red hoods (little ones).

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Green: The board game this group’s words come from is well over a millenia old, but is as popular today as it’s ever been. Knights and pawns are plentiful, but there’s not a single dice to be found.

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Blue: The famous comic strip and its characters have been around since the ’50s. One of the most familiar is probably a beagle with white hair and floppy black ears.

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Purple: The songs, shows, shirts, and sayings here are all connected by two little words that can mean a heck of a lot. In this case the missing words here always come before the ones in this Connections. 

Don’t scroll any further until you’re ready for the full answers!

NYT Connections answer today: Saturday, September 16 (#97) 

Let’s get these Connections connected. 

• Yellow: Giant, Princess, Witch, Wolf (Fairy tale figures)
• Green: Bishop, Mate, Gambit, Queen (Chess terms)
• Blue: Charlie, Peppermint Patty, Pigpen, Woodstock (“Peanuts” characters)
• Purple: Lucy, New York, Rock ‘n’ Roll, You (I love ___)

More about the New York Times’ Connections puzzle game

Connections is the NYT’s latest popular puzzle game where you have to find the common thread that ties four seemingly unrelated words together. Can you find all four increasingly challenging groups of words before you make four mistakes? Don’t forget: every day only has one solution even if some words look like they could belong to more than one group, and you can (and should) shuffle the grid as many times as you need to. It can help jog your brain into reading the words in a different way.

If you enjoy Connections, you should check out the board game Codenames. It’s a popular party game that tasks players with using clues to guess certain words from a grid. As in Connections, the heart of the game lies in how many different possible interpretations the words could have. Connections also clearly owes a debt to Wordle, the hit puzzle game that the New York Times bought in 2022. Perhaps most obvious is the way it uses colored emojis to let you share the results of your puzzle with other players on social media: 

Connections
Puzzle #80

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Each color corresponds to one grouping of four words; a row with mixed colors shows you incorrectly guessed one or more words in a group that didn’t totally match. The rows also show what order you solved the Connections puzzle in. The rows aren’t all created equal: the New York Times ranks them from “straightforward” to “tricky” starting with yellow and progressing to purple.

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Want to show up your Connections friends or just challenge yourself? Try to start by identifying the purple words first and nailing them with your very first guess!