How to Play Strands, the New Word Search Game From the New York Times

Posted on March 5, 2024 by resourcefulman

A new word game has just come out, and this one looks pretty fun. Strands is a new game from the New York Times, the same people who brought you Connections and Spelling Bee. (The New York Times is also currently the home of Wordle, and all of these games follow in the tradition of the iconic crossword puzzle that the paper began publishing in 1942. )

Strands just launched yesterday, so right now you can play Puzzle #2 today. New NYT games are starting in “beta mode”, available online but not yet in the NYT Games app (formerly the Crossword app). Direct link to the Strands game here .

What the board looks like before you start solving. Photo: Strands/NYT

How to play Strands?

Short answer: check out this link where you can watch a tutorial explaining the gameplay. But if you want to get an idea of what you’re getting into, read on.

The Strands board is a 6×8 grid of letters and looks like a little word search. You select words by either dragging your finger (or cursor) over the letters or by tapping/clicking each letter. If you’re using a touch screen, you’ll have to tap the last email again to send; Using a mouse or trackpad, you simply need to remove your finger from the button.

Unlike word search:

There is no word bank that tells you what words you are looking for.
Words can spin and turn in any direction, including diagonally (like in the game Boggle).
Each letter on the board is part of a word. When you find them all, the words will completely fill the grid.

Sound harsh? It would be so if it weren’t for the theme and the tips, and the fact that mistakes don’t count. I’ll explain how this all works, but first let’s talk about how to actually make assumptions.

What is considered legal speech in the Strands?

Here are some things you need to know.

The minimum word length is four letters. There will be no three-letter words.
By connecting letters, you can move in any direction: up, down, left, right or any diagonal.
Yes, diagonals are legal!
The letters are (usually) not in a straight line. Expect lots of unexpected twists and turns.
You cannot use the same letter on the board twice; once a letter is highlighted, you will not be able to use it again.

The last point does not exclude the repetition of letters. This simply means that when you write a COMMA, there will be two M’s next to each other on the board. (Compare this to Spelling Bee, where you can tap the same letter twice.)

How do themes work in Strands?

Each puzzle has a theme, and when you first open the puzzle you will see a title that hints at that theme. For example, puzzle number 1 was: “Remember my words.” All the words on the board correspond to the topic, so we had to find COMMA, PERIOD, APOSTROPHE and others.

There is always a theme word that connects two opposing sides of the puzzle. In No. 1, the word PUNCTUATION went from top to bottom. This special word is called “spangram”. (Once you find it, it will be highlighted in yellow. The rest of the words will be highlighted in blue.)

How to get hints in Strands?

I think the hint button is the smartest part of Strands! Instead of giving you a way to give up or cheat, the game has hints built into the game. You have to earn hints by guessing correct but incorrect words, so the harder the game, the more hints you will earn. Here’s how it works.

The word COMMA highlighted on Strands’ board (after using the hint) Photo: Strands/NYT

How to earn tips in Strands

If you find a vocabulary word that is not part of the intended solution, your hint button will begin to fill up. For example, in the punctuation puzzle, if you highlight the word SOLO (no relation to punctuation), you will see the gray Hint button begin to fill, like a progress bar. Three missing words give you one clue.

How to use hints in Strands

Once your hint button is full, it is ready to use. Click on it and dotted circles will appear around all the letters of one of the words you need to find.

This tells you where the word is and what letters it contains, but you still have to figure out how those letters are supposed to be connected.

The dotted circle highlight will remain on the board until you say the word. You can solve other words before solving the one the clue gave you. But if you earn more hints, they will not be available until you solve the hinted word.

How many mistakes am I making in Strands?

And that’s another great thing: mistakes don’t count against you! If you misspell a word when highlighting it, there is no harm. If you write a vocabulary word that is not part of the topic, you will start getting hints. And when you finish the game and get a short emoji review, it will only include your correct conclusions and the number of clues you used.

What do the emoticons in Strands mean?

Once you solve the puzzle, you’ll receive one of these little emojis describing the game. It tells you the order in which you solved the words. There are three different icons:

Blue means you found a common word.
Yellow means you have found a spagram.
The light bulb means you used the hint.

For example, here’s mine from yesterday:

 Strands No. 1 “Remember my words”🔵🟡🔵🔵🔵🔵🔵

And here’s a message from someone who needed a hint to get started:

 Strands No. 1 “Remember my words”💡🔵🔵🔵🔵🟡🔵🔵

How to win Strands?

So this is the gameplay. What about strategy?

First: know what you’re dealing with. As I noted above, this is a completely new game, so there are sure to be surprises. In the NYT article introducing the game, its editor Tracy Bennett (who also edits Wordle) hints at what’s to come:

Some topics [will be] fill-in-the-blank phrases. They can also be steps in a process, items belonging to the same category, synonyms, or homophones. Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles throughout the week, Ms. Bennett plans to challenge the Strands solvers from time to time.

This suggests that we may see some of the same themes that make me throw my laptop out the window when I find them in Connections. (We all remember that time STICK was included next to CLEM on the list of “sticky things”, right?)

In terms of tactics you can use right now, I find the following things help:

Start guessing the topic in advance and looking for spagrams. In addition to revealing the theme, the spangram also divides the board into two smaller playing fields.
If you think you’ve found a word but can’t find it, go back to the beginning and see if the word you’re looking for is in there somewhere . For example, when I first tried to write PUNCTUATION, I had the right starting place and the right word in mind, but I took the wrong turn. It took me a minute to realize that after the N there are two different C’s that I can follow.
Every time you find a word, ask yourself how it might be related to the name of the puzzle. Today’s puzzle (#2) has “she” in the title. When I found one of the non-spanggram words, I puzzled over what celebrity, historical figure, or fictional character might be associated with the word. My first thought was Taylor Swift, but I didn’t see any other words associated with her. My second thought is – aha! Once I realized this , the issue was practically resolved.
Don’t be afraid to make “wrong” guesses to earn hints. This gives you practice in finding words, and you may find that by the time you find three off-topic words, you will also find one or two on-topic words.

I can’t wait to see where Strands goes next. I wouldn’t be surprised if the puzzles get a little more challenging once we all get the hang of the gameplay style. Have a nice decision!

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