Looking for Thursday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:
Happy Friday! This is the last day of my current stint on our daily Strands guide. It’ll be over to my colleague Paul Tassi tomorrow, while I’ll be taking over the NYT Mini crossword guide for the next week on our little merry-go-round. That said, I had a very fun round of Strands to go out on. Let’s get down to business…
Today’s NYT Strands hints, spangram and answers are coming right up.
How To Play Strands
The New York Times’ Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. It’s now available in the NYT Games app alongside the likes of Wordle and Connections (which we also cover in daily guides on Forbes Games).
There’s a new game of Strands to play every day. The game will present you with a six by eight grid of letters. The aim is to find a group of words that have something in common, and you’ll get a clue as to what that theme is. When you find a theme word, it will remain highlighted in blue.
You’ll also need to find a special word called a spangram. This tells you what the words have in common. The spangram links at least two sides of the board, but it may not start or end there. While the theme words will not be a proper name, the spangram can be a proper name. When you find the spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.
Every letter is used once in one of the theme words and spangram. You can connect letters vertically, horizontally and diagonally, and it’s possible to switch directions in the middle of a word. If you’re playing on a touchscreen, double tap the last letter to submit your guess.
If you find three valid words of at least four letters that are not part of the theme, you’ll unlock the Hint button. Clicking this will highlight the letters that make up one of the theme words.
Be warned: You’ll need to be on your toes. Sometimes you’ll need to fill the missing word(s) in a phrase. On other days, the game may revolve around synonyms or homophones. The difficulty will vary from day to day, and the puzzle creators will try to surprise you sometimes.
What Is Today’s Strands Hint?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hint for today’s Strands puzzle, I’ll reveal what the answer words are.
The official theme hint for today’s Strand puzzle is…
Let’s play
Need some extra help? Here’s another hint…
The main thing we cover in this section
There are six theme words to find today, including the spangram.
What Are Today’s NYT Strands Hints?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Strands hints.
Here are the first two letters of every word, including the spangram, in today’s puzzle:
What Are Today’s NYT Strands Answers?
Before I reveal the other the full word list, I’ll first tell you the spangram and show you where that is on the grid.
This is your final spoiler warning!
Today’s Strands spangram is…
VIDEO GAMES
Here’s where you’ll find it on the grid…
The rest of today’s Strands theme words are…
- UNCHARTED
- FALLOUT
- VIDEO GAMES
- MINECRAFT
- OVERWATCH
- HALO
Here’s what the completed grid looks like…
I was both delighted and embarrassed by today’s grid.
As soon as I spotted HALO in the bottom left, I figured out the theme and quickly got the spangram. FALLOUT and UNCHARTED were next, followed by MINECRAFT.
Somehow, OVERWATCH was the last one I spotted. Bear in mind, this is a game I have spent several thousand hours of my life playing. I hop in for a bit almost every day. I have traveled to esports events for this game and spoken to its developers several times. I have written literally hundreds of stories about it for this very website. And yet it was the last word I found on the grid. For shame.
I used no hints and the spangram was the second theme word I found.
That’s all there is to it for today’s Strands clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog for hints and the solution for Saturday’s game if you need them.
P.S. I’m very curious how many of these franchises you’ve heard of if you needed some help with today’s grid. It would have been easier for many people if it had included the likes of Mario, Zelda, Tetris and other franchises that date back to the ‘80s and ‘90s.
The games in the grid are some of the biggest out there right now. It’s easy for us gamer folks to stay in a bubble and not know what’s really catching attention in the mainstream. So let me know in the comments below or shoot me an email. I’d love to know.
P.P.S. If you’re unfamiliar with Overwatch, do yourself a favor and least check out some of the incredible animated shorts Blizzard made to highlight the game and its wonderful characters:
