TITLE
How Our New Game, Connections, Is Put Together
AUTHOR
Wyna Liu
PUBLICATION
The New York Times
YEAR
2023
ARTICLE TYPE
Postmortem
FROM THE ARTICLE
A few months ago, a new assignment crossed my desk: Create the game boards for Connections, a category matching game that had recently been greenlighted and was in search of an editor. Most of my puzzle experience has been working with crosswords, and I was excited at the chance to try something different. How could writing crossword clues inform my approach, if at all? Much of my work as a crossword editor consists of formatting ideas and definitions into the peculiar and specific syntax of our house style, and this new game, with its stand-alone words, didn’t allow for the space I was accustomed to in order to express meaning. On the other hand, stretchy question-mark crossword clues are often based on the flexible interpretations of words, and those conventions would certainly come in handy. How could I apply my clue-writing experience to this pithier format?
GAMES MENTIONED
Connections
ALTERNATE LINK
Archived Copy @ Internet Archive
PRINT AVAILABILITY
June 28, 2023