Litclues
Sort sixteen book and writer tiles into four hidden groups of four.
Every day: One new 16-tile literature board a day, the same for every player: sort novels, poems, writers and characters into four hidden groups of four, with four mistakes allowed. New puzzle: Midnight UTC, from the countdown in the xClues games' code.
Litclues is a daily Connections-style puzzle about books. Sixteen tiles of novels, poems, writers and characters hide four groups of four, ranked from Easy to Expert, and you have four mistakes to find them all.
About Litclues
Litclues is a grouping puzzle in the style of Connections, built from literature. Each day's board has sixteen tiles: novels, poems, authors, translators and fictional characters. Four of them always share something. One past board grouped novels set aboard a submarine, writers whose names open with a US state, poems by W. H. Auden and Nobel laureates who also worked as translators; another had characters with a colour for a surname and poets who put Homer's Iliad into English.
You select four tiles and press Submit. A right guess locks the group in its colour, which shows its difficulty from Easy to Expert; a wrong one costs one of your four mistakes. A shuffle button rearranges the tiles when you are stuck.
Litclues is one of the xClues games, alongside Filmclues for films and Musiclues for music, each with its own daily board that turns over at midnight UTC. The archive lists every past day with its four groups revealed.
The groups run from children's books to poetry in translation, so it rewards wide reading more than knowledge of one genre. Few daily games are about books, which makes it a good pick for readers who already play the word games.
How to play Litclues
- Open Litclues and look over the sixteen tiles.
- Pick four tiles you think share a connection and press Submit.
- Use Shuffle to rearrange the board if you are stuck.
- Keep finding groups until all four are solved, before you make four mistakes.
- Visit the archive to see past boards and their categories.
Tips
- Sort the tiles first into books, people and characters; a group can be any of the three.
- Wordplay groups turn up, such as names that start with a place, so read each tile as a word too.
- Leave the tiles that could fit two groups until the others are solved.
Questions
When does Litclues reset?
At midnight UTC, like the other xClues games.
How many mistakes can I make?
Four. The game ends on the fourth wrong guess.
Can I play old Litclues puzzles?
The archive lists every past day with its four categories revealed.
Are there other xClues games?
Yes. Filmclues does the same for films and Musiclues for music.
Games like Litclues
Filmclues
The xClues sister game: the same four-by-four board built from films.
Musiclues
The xClues sister game for artists, songs and albums.
Connections
The New York Times word puzzle Litclues is modelled on.
PopCultured
A film, a song and a book from the same year: another daily that rewards readers.
Cinections
Sixteen films in four groups of four, for when you want the same puzzle about cinema.
Connections: Sports Edition
The Connections format with athletes and teams.
AnimeLink
Sort nine anime titles or characters into three hidden groups of three.
Pokennection
Sort sixteen Pokémon into four hidden groups before you lose four lives.