The NYT Connections puzzle for Tuesday, October 28, 2025 (Game #870), challenged players with Wyna Liu’s signature cleverness, featuring categories like Banality, In the Know, Remote Control Buttons, and the notoriously tricky One-Named Singer Plus Starting Letter, alongside classic red herrings designed to stump even seasoned solvers.
The New York Times’s daily word game, Connections, has rapidly captivated puzzle enthusiasts worldwide since its launch. Designed by Wyna Liu, the game tests players’ ability to find common threads among 16 seemingly disparate words, grouping them into four sets of four based on shared themes. On Tuesday, October 28, 2025, Game #870 presented a fresh set of challenges and triumphs for its dedicated fanbase.
Unlike traditional crosswords, Connections thrives on subtle wordplay, double meanings, and expertly crafted red herrings, making each puzzle a unique mental workout. The allure lies in the “aha!” moment when a tricky category finally clicks, transforming a jumble of words into a perfectly organized quartet.
The Words That Defined Game #870
The 16 words for October 28, 2025, were: pelvis, chestnut, home, hip, select, gusher, trope, back, kenya, wise, menu, cliché, aware, ocher, platitude, and savvy. As always, the mix included several tempting decoys, particularly those related to anatomy or color.
Wyna Liu’s Signature Red Herrings
A hallmark of Connections puzzles is the inclusion of “red herrings”—words that seem to belong together but are actually intended to mislead. For Game #870, players were particularly warned against common traps:
- Body Parts: pelvis, back, and hip might immediately suggest a group of anatomical terms. However, as many players discovered, these words served entirely different purposes in the puzzle.
- Colors: Words like ocher and chestnut could easily lead one down the path of color identification, another common misdirection employed by Wyna Liu. This strategic misdirection is a key element of the game’s challenge, often frustrating and delighting players simultaneously, as discussed in an interview with the game’s creator on Vulture.
Decoding the Categories: Solutions for October 28, 2025
The categories, color-coded from yellow (easiest) to purple (trickiest), offered a diverse range of connections, showcasing the intricate thought process behind the game’s design.
Yellow Category: Banality
The yellow group, typically the most straightforward, revolved around terms for commonplace or unoriginal expressions.
- CHESTNUT
- CLICHÉ
- PLATITUDE
- TROPE
Many players might initially struggle with chestnut, which can be slang for an old or stale joke, distinct from its primary meaning as a nut or color.
Green Category: In the Know
The green category brought together words describing someone who is well-informed or perceptive.
- AWARE
- HIP
- SAVVY
- WISE
Here, hip cleverly moved beyond its anatomical red herring, pointing instead to a state of being fashionable or knowledgeable.
Blue Category: Remote Control Buttons
This category required players to think about common functions found on a television remote control.
- BACK
- HOME
- MENU
- SELECT
The word back, initially a body part decoy, revealed its true connection as a navigational function, a prime example of Connections’ layered wordplay.
Purple Category: One-Named Singer Plus Starting Letter
The purple category consistently presents the most difficult challenge, often requiring lateral thinking or specific knowledge. Game #870’s purple group was particularly ingenious, relying on a phonetic trick where adding a single letter to the start of a word would reveal the name of a famous mononymous singer.
- GUSHER (G + Usher)
- KENYA (K + Enya)
- OCHER (O + Cher)
- PELVIS (P + Elvis)
This “add a letter, get a legend” mechanism is a brilliant example of the clever wordplay that Connections creator Wyna Liu infuses into the puzzles, keeping players on their toes and often eliciting a triumphant groan when the solution is revealed. The inclusion of pelvis as a red herring for body parts, only to be revealed as part of “P + Elvis,” was a standout moment for many solvers.
Strategies for Conquering Connections
For those looking to sharpen their skills and avoid common pitfalls, the official New York Times’s daily puzzle offers several key strategies:
- Categorize and Group: Start by identifying obvious connections, but always be prepared for red herrings.
- Patience is Key: Don’t rush. Take time to consider multiple interpretations of each word.
- Think Outside the Box: Look for synonyms, common phrases, or even wordplay tricks like those seen in the purple category.
- Utilize Shuffle: The shuffle function can reorient your perspective, sometimes revealing hidden connections.
- Learn from Mistakes: Reviewing past puzzles and understanding different patterns can significantly improve future performance.
The October 28, 2025, Connections puzzle was a classic example of Wyna Liu’s masterful design, blending familiar concepts with ingenious wordplay to create a truly satisfying challenge. Whether you solved it with ease or learned a few new tricks, it reinforced why Connections remains a beloved daily ritual for word game aficionados.
