Connections Unlimited

Sixteen words, four hidden groups of four. You have four mistakes; when the last dot empties, the game ends. Two hints per game if you get stuck. One daily puzzle, or unlimited new ones.

How to play

1. Tap four words you think belong together, then press Submit (or Enter). Submit only works with exactly four selected; Deselect all clears your picks.
2. If the four form a group, they slide to the top and lock in as a coloured bar with the category name. Groups stay in the order you solved them.
3. A wrong guess empties one of the four mistake dots. "One away…" means three of your four words share a group; it still costs a mistake. When all four dots are empty, the game ends and the groups you missed are revealed, easiest first.
4. Submitting the exact same four words again just shows "Already guessed". It never costs a mistake.
5. Groups are coloured by difficulty: yellow is the most obvious, then green, blue, and purple for the trickiest (often wordplay).
6. Shuffle rearranges the unsolved words. Solved groups never move.

Hints

You get two hints per game, and each one costs 150 points. The first hint shows the category name of the easiest group you haven't solved yet, just above the grid. The second hint highlights one word from that same group. Neither hint places any words for you.

Scoring and stars

• Win: 250 points for every mistake dot you have left, so a perfect game is 1,000.
• Bonus: 100 points if the purple group is the first one you solve.
• Hints: minus 150 points each.
• Loss: 100 points for each group you found before running out.
• Your score never goes below zero.
• Stars: three for a win with no mistakes and no hints, two for a win with at most one mistake and one hint, one for any other win.

Tips

• Count candidates before committing. If five words fit a category, one of them belongs somewhere else; that's the trap.
• Solve the purple group last by elimination: whatever doesn't fit the obvious groups usually shares a hidden pattern, like words containing a number or missing a letter.
• Say the words aloud. Homophones and "___ ball" style fill-ins are easier to hear than to see.

Daily or Unlimited?

Daily gives everyone the same puzzle and counts toward your streak; results share as a grid of coloured squares in the order you guessed, with your mistakes, hints and points. Unlimited pulls a fresh puzzle from our set every time, and the link in the address bar reopens that exact puzzle for a friend.