August 29’s NYT Connections puzzle tests logic, observation, and the recognition of patterns.
Players deal with tricky wordplay, particularly in the purple set.
Hints help direct solvers towards the right sets and cut down on guessing.
Seeing the full answers helps understand the sets, which is useful for later puzzles.
Today’s NYT Connections is a word puzzle like no other. The August 29 grid is a mix of familiar phrases and niche pop culture references; it also features a furry pink category that may make light of certain players’ hesitation.
The quicker a group falls into place, the fewer are the chances for it to be a furry pink category, leaving the rest to be the complementary shade that demands a keener eye and patient process of elimination. For puzzle fans, today’s NYT Connections is both entertaining and challenging.
NYT Connections is a daily word puzzle from The New York Times for those new to the game. Each day begins with 16 words arranged in a grid. The goal is to sort them into four groups by identifying shared themes. Some categories feel straightforward, while others rely on clever wordplay.
The puzzle uses color coding to show difficulty: yellow is usually easiest, green and blue fall in the middle, and purple tends to be the hardest. One solution exists for each puzzle; accuracy matters because only four mistakes are allowed before the game ends.
Here are the 16 words from the NYT Connections August 29 puzzle:
SHELL
MUSHROOM
WAX
BANANA
STAR
STOCK
FIGURE
BALLOON
GULF
MOUNT
7-10
7-ELEVEN
PERSONALITY
CHEVRON
LICKETY
NAME
For those who like to solve with a bit of guidance, here are the NYT Connections hints today, organized by group:
Yellow Group Hint: Found in the limelight
Green Group Hint: Only up
Blue Group Hint: Fill-up spots
Purple Group Hint: Things that split
Yellow: PERSONALITY
Green: MOUNT
Blue: SHELL
Purple: BANANA
Here are the full NYT Connections answers for Friday’s puzzle:
Yellow Group — Famous person: FIGURE, NAME, PERSONALITY, STAR
Green Group — Increase: BALLOON, MOUNT, MUSHROOM, WAX
Blue Group — Places that sell gas: 7-ELEVEN, CHEVRON, GULF, SHELL
Purple Group — _____ split: 7-10, BANANA, LICKETY, STOCK
The puzzle for August 29 takes a playful yet challenging approach. The yellow group is inviting and easy to understand, with words associated with fame and glory. The green group focuses on growth and expansion, but including “WAX” makes things a little more complicated and slower.
The blue group makes the most sense once you get “SHELL” and “CHEVRON” together, as they are clearly gas stations. Including “7-ELEVEN” and “GULF” completes the group, although solvers in the know might have doubted “Gulf” as a brand regionally.
The purple group is the hardest to figure out. BANANA and 7-10 make you think of food and bowling, but LICKETY and STOCK don’t fit the pattern. The hardest group is solved once you figure out that they all relate to phrases ending with “split.”
Clever misdirection also plays a role. Given their connection to classic video game items, many solvers may have been tempted to group BANANA, SHELL, MUSHROOM, and STAR. While fun to consider, that guess leads to a dead end and shows the puzzle’s playful side.
The NYT Connections puzzle for August 29 exemplifies why the game is so fun and captivating. The puzzle has simple and familiar categories, but a set of unexpected relationships within them makes the puzzle more rewarding to approach with hypothesis testing and pattern recognition. The puzzle is most likely to use wordplay, as it often does, to add an extra layer of challenge in the purple group.
The puzzle is moderately complex in comparison to recent NYT Connections puzzles. The yellow group is easy to solve and provides an entry point. In contrast, the purple group is considerably more challenging to solve, as it requires a more flexible and open mindset.
For those attempting to achieve a long winning streak, the August 29 New York Times Connections hints helped prevent errors, and the complete solutions helped understand the puzzles in hindsight.
With September on the horizon, the puzzle highlights creative twists and innovates with the language’s endless room for creativity. Today’s puzzle exemplifies why the NYT’s Connections game is a must for daily word puzzle fans.