Strands, The New York Times' word-search game still in beta, is now on its tenth puzzle. The first two or three puzzles were relatively bland, with puzzlers complaining that the hints revealed too much information, and the game wasn't very challenging. But you and I know better, right? As I pointed out last week , the puzzle's creators have hinted that it's going to get trickier. This has started and, oh my god, people are going crazy.
Before you read on, please note that this article contains spoilers and direct answers for the March 13, 2024 Strands game . Here's a link to play today's game so you can suffer along with the rest of us. Then come back and we'll discuss what you just experienced. (If you're watching later, here's a fan-created archive where you can play the March 13th game even if you're reading this from the future .)
Stock #10 "A Thousand Followers" ????????
Okay, friends. We need to discuss a few things about how puzzles are constructed and what expectations and assumptions are built into them. This puzzle is new, so it's okay if you haven't figured it all out yet! we study together.
Think of "theme" as a crossword clue
If you solve crossword puzzles, especially New York Times crossword puzzles, you will have a huge lead over others in understanding tricky Strands topics. Remember, in Strands, Today's Topic is the clue you get when you open the page. I think it's the title of the puzzle.
Here's what you need to know: Topics are clues to spangrams (yellow words or phrases) . In turn, the spangram describes what the blue words have in common.
Sometimes the theme is a very simple clue: for example,
"Mark my words" appears with spangram punctuation. (Blue words: comma, apostrophe...)
"She'll had a ball" appears with spangram CINDERELLA. (Blue words: pumpkin, slippers...)
"I want to dip it!" Paired with spangram GUACAMOLE. (Blue words: avocado, jalapeno...)
Pretty simple, right? That’s because they made it easy for us to get started. There are some tougher questions:
"To put it mildly" is a euphemism.
"The decrees of rulers" are measures. (This is "ruler" in the scale, not king)
I'm sure this is a word search designed just for crossword puzzle lovers. Personally, I'm here for it: I love New York Times crossword puzzles, especially ones like Thursday and Sunday that are full of clever themes and puns. For example, here are some crossword puzzle clues that I've laughed at over the past week:
"Product line?" for barcode
"Dating initialization" BC (get it? These letters could be part of a prehistoric date )
"B♭?" (i.e. B flat) for LIE DOWN
That 's what happens when "A Thousand Followers" becomes the finale, just like the Strands theme on March 13. The grand is a thousand, the finale is the finale. The puzzle requires us to find the ending of the phrase "GRAND ____".
Looking forward to filling in the blank categories
Now that we've got the hang of it, blue words are sometimes puns based on a theme/spangram. As in Connections , words are not always grouped together as members of categories or synonyms for each other. We see all sorts of tricky combinations there, including homophones and anagrams. (Remember that ATE, FOR, TOO, and WON are homophones for the numbers 8, 4, 2, and 1?)
So what kind of puns can we expect in The Strands? (Fortunately, charades don't really work.) Recall that the New York Times hinted that we might one day see "fill in the blank." This has happened twice. A few days ago, we encountered this confusion:
Topic: "Fragile: Handle with Care"
Spangram: Fragile
Words: heart, silence, commitment, bread, mold, sweat, record.
get it? They both refer to idioms in which we "break" something: you can break bread with someone, or break their heart, or you can sound like a broken record.
What makes the March 13th puzzle so tricky is that it uses both a crossword-style clue for the Spagram and a Connections-style fill-in-the-blank for the blue word. I'm going to spoil it all here because you've been warned:
Topic: "A Thousand Followers"
Spangram: Finale
Text: [grand] prizes, [grand] jury, [grand] central, [grand] canyon, [grand] SLAM, [grand] RAPIDS, [grand] piano.
get it? get it? ? ? Sorry, I was so happy when I figured this out. It also took me a long time to get it because it was such a hard puzzle! It takes some leaps of logic to get these "aha!" moments.
Regardless, those expecting a simple word search are out of their minds . Here's a Reddit thread filled with complaints that Spagram doesn't match the theme, or that "ending" should be its own word. (It would be possible, but then you wouldn't get the lovely construction of GRAND + [synonym for ending].)
Many complaints about this and other puzzles come from non-native English speakers, and this is an entirely valid criticism. (A lot of people were stumped by GADZOOKS the other day - you had to have read a comic book from a certain era to register it as a word.) Difficult word puzzles aren't always for everyone, which is both a problem and is also a problem. The whole point of the puzzle. If you solve something by digging into your brain to find some obscure knowledge or connect two concepts in a creative way, it's an amazing feeling and makes the whole puzzle worth it!
I'm impressed by "Strands" (and have high hopes for it graduating from beta) because it can run the gamut from simple to evil, depending on how abused the constructor is that day. Having "aha" moments on tough problems is one of the thrills of my life (my life is not terribly exciting). Bottom line: This is not a simple puzzle. If you know and like the wordplay skills of Crosswords and Connections, you'll love Strands. Just don't expect it to be easy.
