The New York Times, founded in 1851, has a long history of reporting domestic and global news, opinion pieces, and informing the general public. So it may come as a shock to learn that the news is not The New York Time’s most popular market. Instead, the New York Times online games boast the most engagement across the whole website, and since the acquisition of Wordle, millions of people have subscribed to the New York Times just for the games. I am a loyal New York Times puzzler (ask my 125 Wordle streak), and I play all the games every day as a way to unwind and relax my mind. Even so, I definitely have my favorites and my least favorites. Ranking all of them is like picking a favorite child, but after much deliberation and soul searching, I was able to compile a list. So without further “adieu” (a fantastic first guess in Wordle) this is my ranking of the New York Times games.
- Sudoku, Letter Boxed, and Tiles
I don’t know why, but I have never been particularly interested in these games, so these are not in my consistent daily routine. I occasionally do Sudoku, but that’s about it. The Tiles is an interesting concept, but I don’t understand whether the point of the game is to try to get the highest amount of points or the lowest amount of points. I can’t even look at the Letter Boxed without getting angry. This game is so frustrating and I can’t even fathom where to start it. All in all, I tend to steer clear of these games, although I will occasionally find myself playing them.
- Spelling Bee
The Spelling Bee is definitely the most relaxing of the New York Times games. You are given seven letters with one in gold, and the object is to make as many words as you can with combinations of those seven letters, with the caveat that all the words have the golden letter. There are different tiers you can achieve, with the highest being genius. As much as I love this game, my issue with it is that I always feel like I leave the game incomplete whenever I play it. Because the genius tier is so hard to attain, I always feel I never actually finished the game, which doesn’t leave me with the feeling of accomplishment I get from other games.
- Connections
I would have put the Connections lower, but the accomplished feeling I get after solving a Connections puzzle is by far the best of any puzzle on this list. The Connections seems simple at first. There are 16 words given, and you are tasked with grouping those words into four groups based on what they might have in common. This may sound easy, until one of the categories is “homophones of coordinating conjunctions,” which was a category from yesterday’s puzzle (I was not successful). Maybe it’s just my 30% win percentage on this game, but it just makes me so mad. The rage I feel while playing this game is what is knocking it down but the creativity of the concept of the game is really fun and exciting, and I am ecstatic on the 30% of days I’m successful.
- The Mini Crossword
Unfortunately I do not have the time to complete the large crossword every day, which is what makes the Mini Crossword so great. It’s a typical crossword that only has around 8 words to find. The clues are generally simple, and it makes for a semi-relaxing game experience, aside from being timed. My friends and I are all on the same leaderboard, and we often come within a second of each other for fastest time, leading to some stress in the final seconds of solving the puzzle. It’s a very solid game overall, and the implementation of the leaderboard makes it more competitive.
- Wordle
Perhaps one of the most recognizable games, Wordle took the world by storm in 2022, and my grandparents and parents still send me what they got on the Wordle everyday. Even my best friends from home and I will send each other our Wordle scores if we were particularly successful that day, and it’s a fun way to stay connected with them. The premise of the game is very simple: you have six chances to guess a five letter word. If the letter turns green when you guess it is in the correct place. If it turns yellow, the letter is in the word but is in the incorrect place. I would have ranked Wordle higher if it didn’t anger me just a little bit. Once I start to get to one or two guesses left, it definitely gets a little more stressful.
I have recently taken to Wordle Bot’s AI analysis of my guesses, which I think is a little off sometimes. Today I got the correct guess in 4 turns; however, for my correct guess the Bot gave me a 0 out of 99 for skill of that guess. Putting my beef with the Wordle Bot aside, it’s a fun game that I think was the gateway drug for a lot of people (including myself) to the New York Times game cult, and I love arguing with my friends about what the best starting word is (AUDIO is my go-to).
- Strands
Another new game, Strands is a reimagined word search, but more challenging than just finding the words from a wordbox. Instead, Strands uses a six by eight grid of seemingly random letters, and a box that contains a hint to what the theme could be. From there, it is up to the user to try and find the words (in crooked lines rather than straight, most importantly the spangram (reaching across the entire grid), which reveals the central theme of the puzzle. If you find three words that are not part of the theme, you unlock a hint. This game probably takes me the longest out of the games I regularly play, but it is well worth it. I will think the theme is going one direction, and then all of a sudden I have absolutely zero clue what the theme could be. All in all, it’s untimed with unlimited chances, allowing me to take my time to solve the puzzle, and I feel very accomplished when I am finished with the game.
- Flashbacks
Not only is Flashbacks the best game, it is also the most underrated. Once a week, the New York Times releases this masterpiece of a game, where they ask you to put eight historical events in chronological order. Many of the events are related to the news cycle from the past week. This week, for example, featured an event in which British inmates were locked in a prison called the Black Hole of Calcutta that was so dark that it inspired British astronomers to coin the term ‘“black hole.” Other clues are just fun historical facts. For example, this week I learned that the karaoke machine was invented because a man got laughed at by his coworkers for his poor singing skills and he resolved that he would have done better with a soundtrack behind him. Flashbacks is yet to be made available on the New York Times mobile app, which is most likely why a lot of people haven’t heard of it, but it is worth the extra Google search.
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