NYT Connections players slam October 28 puzzle as ‘extremely annoying’ after being fooled by ‘sneaky’ answer

Players of the NYT Connections game have slammed October 28’s puzzle as ‘extremely annoying’ after being fooled by a ‘sneaky’ answer – so were you able to solve it?

The game, which has soared in popularity in recent months, sees people attempt to divide 16 words into four groups that share some sort of connection.

But many times, the creators purposely use terms that relate to one another in other ways in an attempt to stump players. 

And on Monday, numerous people on the web admitted that they had a hard time figuring out the answers because they had fallen victim to the tricks. 

Reddit was flooded with angry messages about it, with one outraged player calling one of the answers ‘more gimmicky than clever’ and another bashing the creators for using so much ‘misdirection.’ 

The four categories for Monday’s words were: audio apps, indicate, Church of England wedding vow verbs, and magic words.

The first group contained different apps that relate to music, including Audible, Pandora, Shazam, and Tidal.

The second was made up of various ways to say indicate, like mean, signify, spell, and suggest.

The third category in Monday’s puzzle had four terms used in the traditional wedding vows, including cherish, have, hold, and love.

And the final group was made up of ‘magic’ words, like abracadabra, presto, please, and thank you.

But the last category seemed to stump a lot of people by combining words actually used during magic shows and terms that adults describe as ‘magic words’ to kids – and they took to social media to complain.

‘Extremely annoying,’ one player wrote on Reddit afterwards, while sharing their painful results. 

‘Magic words was a bit sneaky,’ said someone else, while another user agreed, ‘Tricky today.’

The game, which has soared in popularity in recent months, sees people attempt to divide 16 words into four groups that share some sort of connection

The four categories for Monday’s words were: audio apps, indicate, Church of England wedding vow verbs, and magic words

Numerous people on the web admitted that they had a hard time figuring out the answers to Monday’s puzzle because they had fallen victim to the creators’ ‘misdirection’

‘Lots of misdirection,’ read a fourth comment.

A fifth said, ‘The magic fooled me.’

‘[The last category] was a bit cringe in my honest opinion,’ scathed a different person. ‘Pun territory that is more gimmick than clever. 

‘And is [the second to last category] a weird, earnest but misguided attempt to appeal to England players?’

‘I might have solved it but I hated it,’ confessed someone else. ‘”Thank you” in magic words? And [the second category] was a stretch.’

Many players admitted that they had never heard of some of the music-related apps, which made it extremely difficult for them to solve. 

‘I had only ever heard of Audible as an app, so that, mixed with not understanding how or why they combined magical act words with polite words meant I was doomed,’ wrote one user.

‘Hadn’t heard of Pandora or Tidal so had no chance of getting yellow,’ revealed another. 

Connections, which launched last year, is the New York Times’ second most popular game behind Wordle.

Everdeen Mason, the editorial director of the Times’s Games section, told Vox earlier this year that she was unbothered by ‘cranky’ players who get frustrated with how difficult it is.

‘My job here is to trick you,’ she confessed at the time.