1. Today's hints
2. Today's answer
3. Yesterday's answer
Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on October 18 for puzzle #496 gets a bit easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.5 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers. And if the hints aren't enough, you'll find all 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #495, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #496. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Unlike our guide to today's Wordle answer , where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category's difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you've made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow : Bring about
- 🟩 Green : Things that are often scented
- 🟦 Blue : Things that might sting
- 🟪 Purple : Video game franchises
These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.
Here's a larger hint: Play some video games while you relax in a bath and avoid the sting of a prompt.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #496?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Bring about: Generate, inspire, prompt, provoke
- 🟩 Things that are often scented: Candle, incense, lotion, soap
- 🟦 Things that might sting: Insult, jellyfish, nettle, wasp
- 🟪 Video game franchises: Civilization, Halo, Madden, Metroid
The purple category has to be one of the easiest, for me, that I've yet to come across in my time playing Connections.
I saw Metroid first, but it was quick glide to grab Halo, Civilization and Madden. I've reviewed the current Madden 25 and am unreasonably hyped for Civilization 7 coming next year. Video games are on the mind.
Okay, putting the controller down, I saw candle and incense when I first opened the puzzle and had in mind a category around a relaxing bath. So, adding lotion and soap to that list was a pleasant fill.
The last two were a coin flip but inspire, prompt and provoke were on top of each other, so grabbing generate made yellow a fast group.
Which left the blue category's stings, emotional and physical, with insult, jellyfish, nettle and wasp.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #495, which had a difficulty rating of 2.8 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion .
We got things going with the yellow category of clunkers. I saw flop and miss first, which led to bust and dud.
It took a minute for the other groups to click for me. Just wasn't seeing it today. I was floating around charge and plastic before that one clicked. I thought card didn't work because its in the other words like charge card, credit card, plastic card but eventually we got there with credit and card.
From there I snagged green with chance, shot, time, and turn.
I had Kindle and Rainforest at one point and never considered Amazon Prime. No clue why. Good thing, I suppose, that this was the rote fill.
It wasn't until the third grouping that I spotted the Texas Hold 'Em trap of card, river, flop and bust or maybe turn. Probably a good thing on my part. Don't let that one get you.
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