NYT Connections Hints Today: Friday, October 31 Clues, Answers And Answers Explained (#873)
Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today’s NYT Connections hints and answers, here’s what you missed on Thursday:
Hey there, Connectors! Happy Halloween!
Okay, I’m going to assume you’ve probably seen today’s grid by now. It’s a fun one! Some might say it’s a trick befitting the occasion. I’d say it was a treat.
We’ve been in situations like this a couple of times before, with emoji- and illustration-based grids. In what’s usually my word list, I’ll write out a brief description of each doodle and hope I don’t spoil anything for you. (I always write out the list before I start playing, anyway.) Let’s keep our streaks going!
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, October 31 are coming right up. Let’s get rolling!
NYT Connections Hints – How To Play
Connections is a free New York Times daily word game that you can play on the NYT’s website or Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the Connections archive, which includes every previous game.
Connections presents you with a grid of 16 words (sometimes phrases, symbols or numbers). The aim is to arrange them into four groups of four. You don’t know how they hit together or what the category for each group is: that’s what you have to figure out.
There’s only one correct solution and there are often red herrings. You can guess incorrectly three times. A fourth wrong guess, and it’s game over.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to deduce, followed by blue, green and purple. Often, the yellow and green groups have synonyms, the blues have cultural references and the purples have some kind of wordplay involved. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Be ready for curveballs – part of the fun of Connections is in how the NYT shakes things up to keep you on your toes.
As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends using an emoji-based grid. The game tracks your progress too.
Many players take pride in having long win streaks or getting a reverse rainbow – correctly guessing the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order with no mistakes. That adds an extra little challenge.
NYT Connections Hints – Today’s Word List
Scroll slowly! I’ll first give you a list of today’s words, then a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll tell you the category names, followed by the full answers.
Today’s 16 words (well, illustrations) are…
- Ghost
- Pumpkin
- Bow
- Bed
- Anchor
- Bear
- Mouse
- Cherry
- Chair
- Three dots followed by a large dot
- High heel
- Cap
- Pipe
- Bowl of hot food
- Can of greens
- Magic wand
NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — a home invader who encountered three of each of these, and found that some were juuuuust right
- 🟩 Green group — the protagonist of a literal rags-to-riches story that paused at midnight
- 🟦 Blue group — he’s often embroiled in a love triangle and can fight to the finish because he eats… one of these
- 🟪 Purple group — the star of a classic arcade game
NYT Connections Hints – One Answer Per Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one answer for each group.
Here we go…
- 🟨 Yellow group — BED
- 🟩 Green group — WAND
- 🟦 Blue group — CAP
- 🟪 Purple group — GHOST
NYT Connections Hints – Groups/Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — Goldilocks
- 🟩 Green group — Cinderella
- 🟦 Blue group — Popeye
- 🟪 Purple group — Ms. Pac-Man
NYT Connections Answers
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.
This is your last chance to look away.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — Goldilocks (BEAR, BED, CHAIR, PORRIDGE)
- 🟩 Green group — Cinderella (MOUSE, PUMPKIN, SLIPPER, WAND)
- 🟦 Blue group — Popeye (ANCHOR, CAP, PIPE, SPINACH)
- 🟪 Purple group — Ms. Pac-Man (BOW, CHERRIES, GHOST, PELLETS)
The Goldilocks doodles stood out to me right away. They made sense once I got to what looked like a bowl of porridge while I was writing out the word list. That took care of the yellows, and it made me think we’d have a bunch of fairytale groups today. However, the ghost, the dots and the cherries certainly brought to mind of Pac-Man. I just didn’t know what would go with them.
Anyway, the pumpkin, high heel (or glass slipper) and magic wand led my mind to Cinderella. I vaguely recalled that there were mice in the animated Disney movie? That was enough to get me the greens.
At that point, everything became very clear for the blues and purples. The anchor (his tattoo), hat and pipe all made me think of Popeye. And that’s not just a can of greens. It’s a can of spinach! Which he eats to make him strong!
And then, of course. my Pac-Man instinct was correct. That’s absolutely one of the ghosts from the game. The pellets were obvious to me as well. The only thing I was missing was the bow. That made me realize, before submitting the group, that they were references to Ms. Pac-Man, not Pac-Man. And now I feel terrible.
I found this to be a really fun game! Of course, it’s nothing but references to fictional characters, so I’m sorry if you didn’t know enough of them and lucked out. I’d love to know how you got on with this one, so please do come and chat about it in our Discord community – you’ll find a link to that below.
This was my 244th win in a row, and I managed it with perfect game (and a regular rainbow, to boot). Here’s my grid for today:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
Let me break down how each word fits into each group, except for Popeye, which I’ve gone over already.
According to the fairy tale (and my memory of it), Goldilocks entered the home of three bears who went for a walk in the woods while their porridge was cooling. She tried each chair and bowl of porridge before testing the beds and going to sleep in one of them. The bears had every right to be annoyed with her!
In the Disney version of the story, Cinderella is a high-born young woman who is forced by her widowed stepmother to become a domestic worker in her own castle. Over the years, Cinderella becomes friends with various animals, including mice.
One day, her fairy godmother arrives and uses her magic wand to turn a pumpkin into a carriage so Cinderella can attend a ball. She and Prince Charming meet and fall in love, but her spell ends at midnight and, in her haste to leave, she loses a glass slipper. Prince Charming then uses this to try to find her.
As for Ms. Pac-Man, she wears a bow and eats cherries and pellets as she moves around each level. The ghosts are her enemies, but if she consumes a larger Power Pellet, she can eat the ghosts for a limited time as well.
Would you like chat with some lovely folks about today’s game? Want to hang out with others who enjoy Connections and other word games? You’re more than welcome to join our community on Discord. Expect fun GIFs, photos from Connectors’ travels and all kinds of other fun stuff.
I’ll be back here with you on Monday for more NYT Connections fun. In the meantime, you can check out the weekend versions of this column on my newsletter, Pastimes.
P.S. There are a bunch of old Popeye cartoons on YouTube, but I can’t recommend them since they did not exactly age well. So, let’s go with something else entirely.
I had this one on my list of songs to recommend, and it fits if you think of Ms. Pac-Man moving around her grid. “There She Goes” by The La’s is an early Britpop hit and, unlike those Popeye cartoons, it absolutely holds up. It’s a lovely-sounding song, and perhaps an antidote to all the Halloween music you’ll hear today:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more NYT Connections hints and help with other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.
