Games like Connections: 25 grouping puzzles, three of them unlimited

The closest games to NYT Connections are Connections Game, Categories and LinkCue: sixteen words, four hidden groups, a limit on mistakes. For more than one board a day, Connections Unlimited and Word Association Game have no daily limit. Themed versions swap the words for Minecraft items, Pokémon or NBA players, and all 25 below are free in a browser.

Connections is the puzzle in which the hard part is not knowing things but resisting them. Five words look like a group, and only four are. Every game here keeps that trap in some form. Some copy the format closely, some bend it (groups of three, groups of different sizes, a thirteenth word that never appears), and some keep it exactly but change what goes on the tiles.

The 25 at a glance

Which games are most like Connections?

Six games keep the format without changing a rule: sixteen words, four groups of four, and a cap on wrong guesses. Connections Game is the most played of them on Alldle, with four mistakes allowed per round. Categories, from Clever Goat, is the same puzzle under a plainer name.

LinkCue is the one to pick if you play in more than one language. It runs in English, French, Spanish and German, and it tells you when a guess is one word away from a group.

Sort Circuit calls its groups circuits and allows four mistakes, with an archive for catching up on boards you missed. Links and Side Stage are new daily boards in the same mould. If those six run out, Cluster, Connex and Lex.Games Conlextions are three more.

Is there a Connections unlimited?

Yes. Connections Unlimited gives you four groups of four related words, then another board, with no daily limit, in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Word Association Game is the other unlimited option: sixteen words into four connected sets, with difficulty settings and an archive. Both are on the unlimited games page with every other game that has no daily cap.

Wordtuck takes the idea somewhere else. You sort word cards into meaning-based categories, solitaire-style, through fixed levels, endless play and ranked challenges.

Connections with a twist

These change one rule, and the rule they change is the reason to play them.

• 4 × 3, from Hank Green, has four overlapping categories of three words, with one word shared between them. Because groups share members, crossing words off as you go stops working.
• Stacked hides groups of different sizes, so you cannot count your way to the last one.
• ThroughWord asks you to sort twelve words into four groups of three, then find the thirteenth word that fits all four and never appears on the board. One designer builds each puzzle, and the archive goes back to number one.
• Looplink makes four groups of four but reuses shared link tiles, so the groups close into a loop.
• Layers makes you earn the board: four small word games first, then sixteen words into four hidden groups.
• Oddest 1 Out shows four rows of four, each with one word that does not belong, and those four odd words form one more puzzle.

Is there a Minecraft Connections?

There are two, and the first is the most played grouping game on Alldle: Craft Connections had been opened 11,350 times here at the time of writing, against 720 for Connections Game. You make groups of four Minecraft items that have something in common. CraftConnections does the same with items, blocks and mobs.

Other themed boards follow the same pattern with a different deck.

• Poconnections: sixteen Pokémon into four hidden categories, daily.
• Isaaconnect: items from The Binding of Isaac.
• NBA Connections and NFL Connections: sixteen players, four groups.
• NYT Connections: Sports Edition: sports terms, from The Athletic.
• Harmonies: every group shares a musical theme.
• GeoConnections, MoneyConnections and OEC Connectrade: countries, currencies and traded products.

The franchise hubs hold the rest: every Pokémon game, every Minecraft game, and the other franchises and themes.

One answer instead of four groups

Some puzzles keep the hunt for what links words together but ask for a single answer.

• Chainle wants the one word that links the clues, across five rounds.
• Beside the Point gives three clues per round and one answer that connects them.
• Duonaut gives two clues and asks for something that fits both. The rarer your answer, the further your rocket flies.

LinkedIn's Pinpoint belongs here too, and the guide to LinkedIn games covers it with the rest of the lineup. For the full list of grouping puzzles, the Connections category holds 36 at the time of writing, and the games like Wordle cover the other half of the morning routine.