[Spoilers for the April 11, 2025 game of NYT Connections are ahead.]
One of the best and worst aspects of the New York Times game Connections is that the puzzle masters behind it try to trip up players with traps or red herrings. These are words that can fit into multiple categories.
Sometimes, four words go together naturally but they’re not part of the solution. It’s an occasionally slightly cruel, but always-fun part of Connections for players to navigate as they aim for a perfect game or, better yet, a reverse rainbow.
Such is the case with the April 11, 2025 game of Connections. When I opened Friday’s grid to start putting together my daily hints and answers column (something that’s unexpectedly become an important, meaningful part of the daily routine day for myself and many of its readers), I was delighted.
Making Connections With Mario
Almost immediately, I recognized what I believed were parts of the titles of many Super Mario games. A huge grin crept across my face as I saw the words KART, SUNSHINE, GALAXY, WORLD and LAND on the grid.
I’ve spent almost my entire life playing Mario games on Nintendo systems. I was convinced that four of these words would form a group. GALAXY made sense with a other words on the grid that related to stars. So I grouped together KART, SUNSHINE, WORLD and LAND and submitted those as my first guess.
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And then… nothing. I wasn’t even one away from a group. I had been well and truly duped.
This absolutely had to have been a red herring. It seemed very intentional. In fact, it was the second great Connections trap this week after one grid had the first names of four James Bond actors.
I have to tip my hat to Connections editor Wyna Liu and the rest of the NYT Games teams. There have been some very clever Connections grids recently (including that all-symbols grid for April 1). But goodness, did it feel like a rug pull for those Mario-related games not to have been a group.
I’ll just have to make do with playing countless hours of Mario Kart World when it arrives alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 in a couple of months.
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