Online game players, did you think April Fool’s Day would not touch you? Ha ha ha boo hoo hoo, Connections players, what was that all about?! Connections, the New York Times game where you have to find connections between words, went wacky on Monday, April 1, with an April Fool’s edition.
Instead of words to match, players were shown a grid of 16 emojis, ranging from a vampire to a wedge of cheese, and expected to match them up as if they were words. (Game spoilers ahead, so if you don’t want cheats for Monday’s game, go play Connections now, then come back.)
Not everyone loved the idea of an all-emoji Connections. One CNET editor told me he opened the game, saw the emoji, and slammed the game shut in disgust. Someone else reloaded the page in case there was a glitch in the matrix.
One user posted to Bluesky, “Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimized by NYT’s Connections today.”
Another wrote, “Today’s Connections game was ultimately fun but initially horrifying.”
I thought it was at first confusing, then kind of fun when it turned out the puzzle really worked, and wasn’t that difficult. But don’t do it again, NYT. At least, until next April 1.
Want the answers? Here they come.
Connections answers for April Fool’s Day emoji edition
Last chance to look away! We’re about to spoil this diabolical game.
The yellow category is “food slang for money,” though we forgive you if you think it was just “foods.” The emoji are bread, bacon, lettuce and cheese.
The green category is “words that rhyme,” or plane, rain, train and brain. We’re thankful they didn’t use the flamenco dancer for “Spain.”
The blue category is my favorite, “horror movies.” The little alien stands in for Alien, the screaming face for Scream, the vampire for any number of Dracula or other movies, and the saw for, well, Saw.
And the infamously tricky purple category was “letter homophones,” meaning emoji that are pronounced the same as letters in the alphabet. The emoji are ewe for U, bee for B, eye…
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