Forbes Connections: What It Really Is, How to Play & Daily Hints Explained
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If you searched for “Forbes Connections”, you have probably seen pages promising daily Forbes Connections hints — and you may be wondering whether Forbes actually runs a Connections puzzle. Here is the honest answer first: the Connections game itself belongs to The New York Times, not Forbes. What people call “Forbes Connections” is really a search phrase built around hint and answer guides — including guides published by Forbes contributors — for the NYT’s daily word puzzle. This guide explains the game properly, how to play it, and how to use hints without spoiling the fun.
Quick Info
| The real game | Connections — a daily word puzzle by The New York Times Games, released June 12, 2023, edited by Wyna Liu |
| The goal | Sort 16 words into 4 groups of 4 that share a hidden category |
| Lives | 4 mistakes allowed — a wrong guess costs one life |
| “Forbes Connections” | A search phrase for hint guides, not an official Forbes game — Forbes contributors publish unofficial daily hints |
What Is Forbes Connections?
“Forbes Connections Hints” pages describe a daily puzzle in which players receive a set of clues and must find the links between words — grouping 16 words into four hidden categories across areas like pop culture, history, business and technology. The difficulty changes daily, and the guides promise a nudge rather than a full answer. That description matches the NYT Connections game almost exactly, and that is no coincidence.
The connection to Forbes comes from search behaviour and content overlap, not from game ownership. Websites that publish daily hints or answers optimise their titles with popular keywords — including the names of big outlets like Forbes — and over time “Connections hint Forbes” became a phrase people type into Google almost as if Forbes were the go-to place for puzzle help. Forbes contributors do publish daily Connections hints and answers guides, but those are unofficial guides to someone else’s game, not a Forbes-owned puzzle.
How the Connections Puzzle Works
The rules are simple to learn and surprisingly hard to master:
- The board: You get 16 words in a 4×4 grid. Every word belongs to exactly one of four groups of four.
- The groups: Each group shares a hidden theme — for example, tennis shots (serve, slice, smash, volley), superheroes with “the” in their names, or words that can all mean a faint sign (flicker, suggestion, trace, whiff).
- The colours: Groups are colour-coded by difficulty once solved — yellow is easiest, then green, then blue, and purple is hardest, often involving wordplay.
- The lives: You have four mistakes. Spend them carefully, because the game deliberately plants red herrings — words that seem to fit two groups at once.
- The reset: A fresh puzzle arrives daily, at midnight local time, playable on the web or in the NYT Games app.
The game was released on June 12, 2023, during its beta phase, and it is now the second-most-played game published by The New York Times, behind Wordle. Its puzzles are written by editor Wyna Liu.
Hints and Strategy That Actually Help
Good hints point you toward understanding a category without handing over the answer. The most useful hint guides work in layers: a gentle hint for each colour, then one starter word per group, then the full solution with reasoning. If you only need a nudge, stop at the first layer — you will enjoy the solve far more.
Strategy-wise, experienced players recommend a few habits. First, shuffle the board before analysing it — the layout is designed to mislead. Second, look for the five-word trap: if five words seem to fit one category, one of them belongs elsewhere, so do not guess blindly. Third, solve the most obvious group first (usually yellow) to shrink the board. Fourth, think about how words function in different contexts — as nouns, verbs, idioms, or parts of compound words — because the purple group almost always plays on that flexibility. Finally, treat every guess as precious: with only four lives, a “probably right” guess is often worse than a skipped one.
Forbes vs NYT: Clearing Up the Confusion
So, to be clear: Forbes does not run the Connections game. The puzzle is made by The New York Times. Forbes contributors, along with many other outlets, publish unofficial hints and answers each day for players who want a nudge. Independent hint guides state plainly that they are not official pages of The New York Times or Forbes. If a page claims to be the “official Forbes Connections game”, treat that claim with scepticism — it is almost certainly a hint guide dressed up as something more.
None of this makes the hint guides useless. A well-written daily hints page — one that layers its clues and explains its reasoning — is genuinely helpful, especially for the tricky blue and purple groups. Just know what you are reading: a fan-made or contributor-written companion to the NYT’s game, not the game itself. And if you want to play the real thing, go to the official NYT Games page or app, where a new puzzle waits every day.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Forbes Connections?
“Forbes Connections” is a search phrase for daily hint guides — mainly Forbes contributor guides — for the NYT Connections word puzzle. Forbes does not own or run the game.
Who makes the Connections puzzle?
The New York Times. It launched on June 12, 2023, and its puzzles are written by editor Wyna Liu.
How do you play Connections?
Group 16 words into 4 groups of 4 by hidden category. You get 4 mistakes; groups are ranked yellow (easiest) to purple (hardest).
Are Forbes Connections hints free?
Most hint guides, including Forbes contributor pages, are free to read online.
Do hints spoil the puzzle?
Only if you read too far. Good guides layer their clues — read the gentle hint first and stop there if you want to solve the rest yourself.
Read more: FentoMagazine.com USA — What It Is, What It Covers & Is There a US Edition? · The New York Times Connections — Wikipedia
