Games like Connections: daily grouping and link puzzles

The nearest games keep the Connections board exactly as it is, and the daily Connections-style games page (/daily-connections-games) lists every one we know. For a second word grid each day, Links from Mind Loft sorts sixteen words into four groups before four mistakes, Common Ground picks categories meant to work in any country, Categories from CleverGoat posts a numbered grid at midnight New York time, and Four Groups is one of Clue Morning's seven dailies, with a difficulty rating on each board. Conlextions is Lex Friedman's numbered grid, timed and ranked, free on the web and in the Lex.Games app with an optional upgrade for its PRO games. Groups·16 from doce.games scores you on time and comes in English, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese, and LinkCue from Linerko is another numbered board with four mistakes that tells you when you are one word away. Side Stage from Really Bad Studio never ends the game on a wrong guess and takes points off a score out of 100 instead. Sort Circuit from Technobezz calls its groups circuits and labels each one you solve with a voltage, from 3.3V for the easiest to 110V for the trickiest.

Some keep the sixteen tiles and add a step. WordBridge asks for a fifth theme that runs through all four groups once the grid is solved, and PuzzGrid follows the connecting wall from the quiz show Only Connect: a grid of the day picked from its players' puzzles, a clock, and the links to name at the end. Layers locks four of its tiles behind small word games you solve first. Others change the shape: Stacked has fifteen words in groups of one, two, three, four and five, Looplink uses twelve words where four link words each belong to two neighbouring groups, 4×3 from Hank Green has four groups of three that all share one hub word, Meldle hides three two-letter pairs among twelve word fragments, each pair finishing four words, and in the Phrasicle site's Common Ground each group goes with one hidden word to make a phrase. Categories on Arkadium lets you pick a 3x3, 4x4 or 5x5 board. Vennections sorts nine words into three overlapping circles, and Globs merges dozens of tiles group by group until one is left.

Other boards change the subject. NBA Connections uses basketball players, Football Connections on Futbolle uses footballers and F1 Connections on Pole to Paddock uses Formula 1 drivers. Cinections and Filmclues do it with films, Harmonies and Musiclues with music, Litclues with books, Geo Connections with flags, maps and places, Connectrade from the OEC with export products, Watch Connections on Tick with watch models, makers and nicknames, and PixelLinkr with video game titles, so a fan gets the same game in a subject they know.

The next group is about spotting the link rather than sorting. LinkedIn's Pinpoint shows you words one at a time and asks what category they share, rewarding you for guessing early; more games like it are on the games like Pinpoint page (/games-like-pinpoint). Catfishing shows the categories a Wikipedia article sits in and asks you to name the article, ten articles a day. linqed has you answer four trivia questions, then name the word that connects the answers.

If you like the wordplay side of Connections, Codenames Daily hands you a spymaster's clue to decode, Circuits on Puzzmo builds chains of two-word terms, and Crossclimb on LinkedIn turns trivia answers into a word ladder.

Start with Links, Common Ground or Categories if you want the same game with new words, WordBridge or Looplink if you want the same idea with one more twist, NBA Connections or Cinections for a new subject, and Pinpoint if you want something quicker. Most of these take a few minutes and refresh once a day.