Anyone else wish that Wyna Liu would take a break? (NYT Connections)

[JMSA]

I’m sure she has done a great job. But the game would benefit from some new blood. I usually relish the daily NYT puzzles but took one look at Connections this morning and thought, ‘you know what, I can’t be arsed.’ 😆
It might even just be nice if they varied it up once in a while, by having someone else’s input.
Just me? Or is the puzzle often ridiculous?

Ha ha. Yes! I was actually thinking this the other day. It's inevitable there will be dips sometime, but I deffo think she needs to take a deep breath and a break. When I think of the content she has to churn out, it overwhelms me, so she must occasionally be barrel-scraping.

Interestingly, I wondered whether this was a genre AI could take over, so I asked ChatGpt and it was a bit shit actually (so hats off to her, I guess), but I'm sure with proper training it could learn.

A while back I was recommending the game to any puzzle-loving friends. Now I don't bother, because it's more often than not "???" and "wtf"

I solved today's with no mistakes, which doesn't often happen. It's just a bit of fun. Sometimes yes the categories are ridiculous but I just groan and get on with my day.

Does anyone know where I could find UK centric versions of the game? I get a bit fed up with all the Americanisms after a while, although I do appreciate its in The New York Times….

You could try Wordlinkle

Many thanks!

Glad it’s not just me!

God, she’s so fucking annoying 🤣
There’s Ginger, Scary, Sporty and Baby on there today … but are completely unconnected 🙄

Thanks for the spoiler 😉
The fun is that it is rarely the obvious connection, isn’t it?

Ha, it was particularly annoying today.

SPOILER
This isn't the Connections 'post your result' thread, so I guess we can be more lax with spoilers, but yes, obviously - OBVIOUSLY - it wasn't going to be that connection. So that was an eye roll.

But then the blues - either it is the word before, or it isn't the word before. Not a choice of two words (roger/rogers). Because then you could have any words.

And the purple. I hate when she uses an obscure word (in this case 'Belled'). So immediately it leaps out as, oh that must be a contortion. Why not have, for eg, Dock, which would work. A word you might think, ooh does that go anywhere else? Whereas Belled is, right, that's an add-on.

But then, that is also annoying because a name with a letter added to it is so random. Is there any logic to the added letters? No. Puzzles should have patterns and I think sometimes she plays fast and loose with the structure.

(Ha. It's only because we care, Wyna!)

See I thought that the ginger scary baby etc connection MIGHT be a valid one, despite it seeming too obvious, because I wasn’t sure if it would be obvious to Americans - no idea how popular they were in the us!