NYT Connections has quietly become the daily puzzle most people open first — even ahead of Wordle. The format is simple and brutal: sixteen words, four hidden groups of four, and a handful of words placed specifically to make you guess wrong. If you've finished today's board and want more, or you just want to play without a subscription, here's where to go.
The magic isn't the grid — it's the red herrings. A great board makes five words look like plausible "fish" when only four belong, and hides its trickiest group behind wordplay ("___ market", homophones, hidden words). A good alternative needs three things: hand-written puzzles (generated ones feel flat), a shared daily so results are comparable, and a mistake limit that makes each submit matter.
WordKin is Skorven's take on the genre, built around exactly those three things. Every board is written by hand with deliberate trap words, the daily is seeded from the date so the whole world plays the same sixteen words, and you get four mistakes — with a "One away!" nudge when three of your picks were right.
Play today's WordKin board free →
If the appeal of Connections is the daily ritual more than the words, Skorven runs a whole set of shared dailies you can stack into one five-minute routine: Word Guess (unscramble eight words against the clock — closest to the Wordle-shaped itch), the daily Sudoku, Color Flood's seeded board, and Path Signal's daily path puzzle. They're all collected on the daily games page, every one free and download-free.
Connections earned its spot — but one board a day is a tease, and the archive sits behind a subscription. WordKin gives you the same "sixteen words, four traps" tension with a fresh daily and unlimited free practice. Bring your streak.
More on daily puzzles: free daily word games to play every day · the best free brain games for adults · all Skorven word games.
