I guess I can ignore the New York Times’ new online game, Strands. But a friend of mine keeps posting her scores on Facebook, showing diagrams dotted with blue and yellow circles and light bulbs, which are nothing like Wordle’s green, black, and yellow squares. I’m very interested.
Do I need to become addicted again? NO, I have not. But did I get it? Yes, indeed yes, I did.
(Note: There are spoilers for the May 8 game at the bottom of this article. Please heed your own warning.)
read more: Here is today’s link answer
How to Play The New York Times Strands
To play Strands, first you need to find it. It’s only in beta, so it’s not yet available in The New York Times gaming app. You need to jump right into the game. Since it’s in beta, that means it’s still being tested and therefore may be improved before it’s fully released.
read more: Here are today’s Wordle answers
There is a theme
Once there, you’ll see a very brief phrase labeled “Today’s Topic” for the puzzle. You are looking for all words related to this topic hidden in the word search grid.
This is a word find, with a twist
If you see a word, click the first letter, then drag your mouse to each letter below in order. You can move in any direction as long as the letters are directly adjacent and you move from one to the next in the correct order. Or you can click on each letter in the order of the word. You have to click on the last letter twice so the game knows you’re done – I always forget this. Each word must be made up of four or more letters, but they can be connected in any direction as long as the letter touches the next letter in some way.
Your goal: find keywords
If you find a keyword, it will light up blue. You can also find words that are not related to the topic, and the game will give you a hint point. Find three such words and click the hint button, and the puzzle will show you the letters of one of the themed words. But it won’t show them in order – you still need to interpret them. There are generally six or seven topic words, but the number seems to vary, I guess because words of different lengths are used each day to fit the topic and fill the entire letter grid.
Spanggram explains the theme
There is a special keyword hidden in the puzzle called “spangram”. It spans the entire puzzle, although it can be horizontal or top to bottom, and it describes the theme of the puzzle. Get the word and it will light up yellow.
read more: Wordle Memo ranks the most common letters in English words
Use these tips to win
I’m always amazed that Strands manages to use every letter in the puzzle and give me enough small single words to get all the hints I need. Here are some tips I picked up while playing the game.
Tip 1: Use a theme
The themes of the puzzles are very general and sometimes even funny, but don’t ignore them. They are free clues for spangram and if you find it first you will easily find the keyword. So if the theme is “Taste of Thoughts,” the puzzle maker might use “taste” to mean food, and spangram might be “spice.”
Tip 2: Aim for spangrams
Finding the short words in the puzzle is easy, but first look for the fence and look for the spangram. It touches two opposite sides of the board, and sometimes it’s a two-word phrase. Take a moment to stare at the puzzle for a while, or even come back to it after leaving the screen. This might help you find the answer.
Tip 3: Make the most of your tips
You can treat Strands like any word search puzzle, just look for hidden words that match the theme. But if you’re like me, you’ll want to be prompted. As long as a word has four or more letters, it’s important. You can also reuse a cue word if you can add a suffix to it (such as S) (in other words, if the S touches the last letter, or if a longer suffix (such as ES) is moved off the last letter).
Tip 4: Tips are valuable
If you find three non-themed words, you can click the “Hint” button and the letter of one of the themed words will light up on the board. But sometimes I still have trouble deciphering the letters. You can use an online word puzzle solver to see what words these letters can make. But there’s another way: Once there’s an active cue on the board, which means the letters are lit, just out of order, find enough words to get another cue. Because you already have this activity prompt on Blackboard, your new prompt will show the actual word by highlighting each letter in order.
May 8 New York Times Strands answer explanation
Below are spoilers for the Strands game on Wednesday, May 8, so stop reading now if you don’t want to see it. Because we have to talk about this, Strands players.
The theme for the day was “Can You Count?” The show followed the May 7th theme, “Can You Dig?” That puzzle was all about heavy metal, including common words like gold and silver, and I swear on my life Words you’ve never heard of: bismuth and antimony.
But the Strands game on May 8 is based on numbers, “numbers”. So Spangram is “number,” but next, look at the other words:
all
binary
serial port
Telephone
lucky
dance
bacon
Of course, if you put them before the “number”, the first five will be fine. Integers, binary numbers, serial numbers, phone numbers, lucky numbers. But what about the last two? It took me a while to make the connection between “dance” and “number,” as in “she performed a beautiful dance,” but eventually it made sense.
But I admit, I had to google “bacon numbering” and thought maybe different bacon bits were…numbered? Then I realized that this game was referring to Kevin Bacon’s “Six Degrees of Separation” game, in which you see how many steps it takes to pass someone you know or who has been in the movie. One connects with Kevin Bacon. Well, sure, but come on, that’s enough! Bacon count?
Oh, I think my Bacon number is two because I once met Bacon’s wife, Kyra Sedgwick, on the set of her show, The Closer.
Thank you so much, Strands, for making my heart feel this way.
