Everyone is familiar with the popular New York Times web games like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword. But now there is a new NYT web game in town: Strands.
The game was released on March 4th, for the public to beta test and uncover any bugs in the game. The New York Times reported that the game is “a play on the classic word search. But it’ll only stick around if enough people play it every day.” So the real question is, will Strands live up to the hype of Wordle?
Wordle was the start of the popularity of NYT web games. The game is a word-guessing puzzle where you get six tries to guess the five-letter word. The word must be found in the dictionary, but it cannot be a plural word ending with “S” or “ES”. The game also gives feedback to help you solve the puzzle by using colored tiles. Green letter tiles indicate that the letter is correct. Yellow letter tiles are in the word but do not have the right placement, and gray letter tiles are not in the word at all.
Natalie Muharem, a daily Wordler, conquers the game each day to keep her streak. “I like that [Wordle] gets me thinking about words,” said Muharem. “It expands my vocabulary.”
Strands might be on the rise as another game to play daily. The objective of the game is to find words in the word search that fit under the theme of the day. Words can be connected by going up and down, side to side, diagonally, or even in all directions. Every letter on the board must be used until the entire board is filled with words. However, if words are found that don’t fit under the theme, then the words can be used to earn a hint to the puzzle topic. Players can also achieve the “Spangram” while playing the game. It describes the puzzle’s theme and touches both sides of the word search board. Sometimes the theme is very difficult to figure out or does not make sense. This creates a struggle for players to figure out the theme for the words. Even the professionals are stumped.
“Strands were way harder than I thought it would be,” said Savannah DeLullo, a famous professional NYT puzzle player on TikTok. “So it turns out this game is incredibly difficult, and that scares me for future games,” laughed DeLullo.
The intense and constant difficulty of the game might lead to the game becoming less popular.
“It was definitely a challenge,” said new Strands player, Mark Poulin. “It was so difficult to complete that I didn’t like it that much.”
If you enjoy a challenge, Strands and other NYT games are free to play and can be played on any device. Although, there is a three-game limit on how many NYT games can be played per day. The games reset with new puzzles every 24 hours, for a new challenge every day.
