Only Conexo

August 12, 2024 5:45 AM

If you enjoy putting things into categories, you might enjoy Conexo, a free daily browser puzzle based on one of the rounds from Only Connect [wiki]. Presented with 16 words or phrases, put four things each into four categories - that's it!
posted by Dysk (33 comments total)

Finally a puzzle game posted to MF I can actually do. Thanks!
posted by td2x10e3 at 5:53 AM on August 12

Hey, this is fun. Thanks.
posted by humbug at 5:55 AM on August 12

This kind of puzzle is also in the NYT's games collection as Connections, although it was likely inspired by Only Connect as well.
posted by JHarris at 6:02 AM on August 12 [4 favorites]

This is also a free alternative to the NYT's Connections (wikipedia link), which I gave up a few months ago when I finally followed through on cancelling my NYT subscription over their election coverage and willingness to dignify bad-faith reactionary viewpoints on their editorial page.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:03 AM on August 12 [7 favorites]

There's also the venerable Puzzgrid, which has an archive of over a hundred thousand boards. Some of them are absolutely fiendish. (To apologize for that one, here's an easier one).
posted by novalis_dt at 6:16 AM on August 12 [8 favorites]

Only Connect starts up again today! That's all, just wanted to celebrate.
posted by Garm at 6:43 AM on August 12 [8 favorites]

Yay! I’m also in the “finally a daily brain game for me!” crowd.
posted by itesser at 7:08 AM on August 12

Oooh.... thank you! Great brain game, even without Victoria. (I have a crush.)
posted by Savannah at 7:15 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

I just want to point out that the red they picked is a pretty alarming color for indicating you got something correct!
posted by nobody at 7:20 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

I don't have an NYT subscription, their articles are paywalled for me. However, I can play Connections, Strands, and Wordle without needing a subscription.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:21 AM on August 12 [5 favorites]

A friend of mine does this, asks me for assistance in the dressing room, and most of the time they are very hard.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:32 AM on August 12

Seconding that the NYT site will let you play Connections with no subscription. And I for one like that there's a submit button you click after selecting your four, rather than Conexo's taking it as submitted as soon as you click the fourth. But still, happy to have another little gamelet to wake me up! :)
posted by solotoro at 8:02 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

Novalis: that fiendish grid was very fun - and very fiendish. Great recommendation.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 8:20 AM on August 12

I just want to point out that the red they picked is a pretty alarming color for indicating you got something correct!

Seconded, getting it first was confusing!

This is fun, thanks for sharing!
posted by ellieBOA at 8:39 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

After playing a dozen games, I’m a little irritated when the puzzle is set up in a way where factually correct answers are wrong in context of the puzzle. “Posh” was a clue and “Spice Girls” was a category, but the two did not go together.
posted by itesser at 8:41 AM on August 12 [6 favorites]

There's an error on 7/28 that ... well, this is the first time I've noticed in this game or Connections that there are two words that would legitimately fit in two categories and one combination is considered wrong.

Click arrow for potential spoilers.

Rabbit, Tiger, Monkey, Dragon and Horse all apply to the category "Chinese Zodiac signs".
Sparks, House, Fruit, Dragon and Horse all apply to the category "_____ fly".
But Dragon only counts under _____ fly, and Horse only counts under Chinese Zodiac.

Typically this kind of structure is part of a thematic fake-out (for example, Rat is also included in this puzzle but is required to be used in a different category --"report another's wrongdoing" -- so the puzzle can't be completed without finding its correct place). For Dragon and Horse, I can't think of a way you could work out which belongs where besides guessing.

posted by penduluum at 8:43 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]

After playing a dozen games, I’m a little irritated when the puzzle is set up in a way where factually correct answers are wrong in context of the puzzle. “Posh” was a clue and “Spice Girls” was a category, but the two did not go together.

A quintessential feature of the Connecting Wall on Only Connect.
posted by Gadarene at 8:53 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

Yes, it's a feature of this type of puzzle that it can be ambiguous which words go in which categories, and that the fact that there's exactly four categories, with exactly four words each, is often required to solve the puzzle. However, the problem that penduluum describes is pretty bullshit.
posted by Merus at 9:24 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

It is, but it's the only example of the same I've come across so far. I put it down to the author I think being a native Portuguese speaker (the game is also available in Portuguese!)
posted by Dysk at 9:28 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]

Pleasant. I would say that today's was wrong, though. When treated as caused by an outside force (i.e., as a transitive verb), a "jolt" is not usually a pull, it's a push.
posted by praemunire at 10:31 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]

A fun extra challenge for these games is to try to figure out the category of the last remaining 4 words before selecting them. Even with the knowledge that they *must* go together, it can be hard!
posted by scose at 11:14 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]

I do double diamond crosswords for a lark but the categories in puzzgrid seem designed specifically to crank my goat. Feels like the same kind of inside baseball as UK cryptics where knowing the trick is more important than knowing the words. Bleah.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:20 AM on August 12

IMO its certainly an antipattern for a puzzle to contain guess and check elements. I'm not sure the Connecting Wall concept requires it but every iteration I've seen does. I feel like there should be a way to diagram these puzzles out and deduce a correct solution without it...
posted by pwnguin at 11:52 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

OK! My this is my jam--looking forward to wasting more time on the internet when it's too miserable to go outside. (Like I need more computer time wasters!)

I play something similar to wake up in the morning. Shockwave.com has a bunch of free online games. I start with the super easy-peasy Tridle, done with the first sip of coffee to get my sluggish brain moving, Quindle, for the 3-4th sip, and finally when the other eye opens, I do Quadle. Quadle isn't terribly hard, just aggravating. My 3/4 cup figured MATTERHORN, AVALANCHE, KILIMANJARO, ROCKIES, and NUGGETS sounded like there might be a relationship. But nooooo. I make it a bit more challenging by trying to max out my fastest times, but sometimes after a bad night, I need a sip from the second cup for Quadle.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:59 AM on August 12

I love it, thanks for posting!
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:05 PM on August 12

Quadle is much better than puzzgrid, far less stunty. (No "entries start with an animal" BS)
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:28 PM on August 12

This is fun!

It would be kind of nice for each word to have a little scratch area for you to pencil potential categories in. Then you could defer submitting any actual guesses until you had worked the categories out more completely.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 1:12 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]

antipattern for a puzzle to contain guess and check elements. I'm not sure the Connecting Wall concept requires it but every iteration I've seen does.

My sense has been that the NYTimes puzzle, at least, is designed to be entirely solvable without any guessing, where any potential ambiguity is resolvable by working out what one or more of the other three categories must need (which a faded photo of their beloved's suggestion above would make more clear).
posted by nobody at 1:40 PM on August 12

Yea, I just wish the UI supported that, ala Sudoku pencil marks in other apps.
posted by pwnguin at 2:39 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]

I made a few on Puzzgrid years ago. In fact, it appears that I posted Puzzgrid to Metafilter 14 years ago.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:03 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]

A fun extra challenge for these games is to try to figure out the category of the last remaining 4 words before selecting them. Even with the knowledge that they *must* go together, it can be hard!

Sometimes these will be a complete-the-phrase category (Just today, in Conexo, there was ___ ants), but my bane are those that are four common words in a category with a minor difference, like, birds with one letter changed. Categories tend to be color-coded by trickiness, with the NYT puzzles going, from easy to hard, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, and those categories, the ones that are words with a slight change, are invariably the Purple category.
posted by JHarris at 6:14 PM on August 12

Oh, wow, I've consistently wondered why [caution-light] yellow would be set as an easier category-color than [go for it] green and [such a calm hue of] blue, and it's only upon seeing you writing them out in a row just now that I realized they're in ROYGBIV rainbow order! (And I bet they skipped red/orange for the same reason Conexo should have.)
posted by nobody at 9:17 PM on August 12 [2 favorites]

Does Conexo colour code but difficulty? I'd never even considered that possibility. It would make sense, or at least more sense than it being something to do with the kind of category, as I'd assumed based on the "[word] ____“ clues (almost?) always being purple.
posted by Dysk at 12:10 AM on August 13