Sorry in advance if you’re exclusively a Vertex, Sudoku, Letter Boxed or Tiles-enjoying unicorn. I acknowledge your existence.
Now, onto the rankings for the games that are actually relevant:
- The Mini
Is the Mini being last place a controversial take? I feel like it shouldn’t be.
The issue with this game is that it’s too quick and easy. Make no mistake — I understand the appeal, especially since the Mini was designed for sleepy mornings in the cubicle, but I play this game late at night. It takes less than a minute to complete the Mini on most days. That’s barely enough time for my dopamine pathways to activate, much less my melatonin ones. I finish the little grid and receive neither fulfillment nor sleep. I am left with nothing but a vague, unsatiated longing for something more.
In all senses, a game destined to be consigned to the vast realm of oblivion known as mediocrity. There’s nothing bad about the Mini, per se — it just fails to be anything particularly good. Mediocrely, last place.
- Strands [BETA]
Strands has a solid concept: it’s a themed word search, with the theme presented as a puzzle title that you have to decrypt. Pretty unique, honestly. The problem is that Strands isn’t actually that fun in practice.
The board is small, just 6×8, and every letter on the board is part of a word to be found. As soon as you find the first word, the difficulty level drops off a cliff. The theme becomes obvious and you get a sense of what words you’re trying to find. Not to mention that you functionally have unlimited hints and no penalties. Where are the stakes? Where is the strategic exploitation of my fear of failure? Cowards.
All in all though, not a bad game at its core. I hope it gets better and more emotionally exploitative before they officially release it. As of right now, I only occasionally forget about it on my nightly speedruns.
- The Crossword
Ah, the Crossword — this one’s love-hate for me. Similar to the Spelling Bee, the Crossword wears my brain out. The Wednesday and Thursday games tend to be the ones that finally get me to sleep during the week — sometimes because I straight-up pass out while playing, sometimes because the sweet release of sleep is more merciful than stewing in the utter shame of not knowing where Corfu is (Greece, if you ever need to know.)
Unlike the Spelling Bee, though, the Crossword doesn’t involve guessing random letter combinations ad infinitum. There are niche facts and trivia being drawn upon! Interesting and semi-useful knowledge about culture, geography, politics and art to be gained! Frequent humiliation aside, the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. I can’t help but adore a game that makes me feel intellectually validated one day and so intellectually inadequate another. No, I have no idea what that possibly says about me.
- Wordle
What poetic is there to wax about Wordle that hasn’t been waxed already? It’s cute, it’s simple, it’s evergreen. The boy-next-door equivalent of NYT games. Would treat you right, 10/10.
Just kidding — no. Wordle will be nice and give you ‘SLATE’ on one day and then hit you with something fucked up like ‘CONEY’ on the next, where you’re on guess 5 with -ONEY, sweating as you realize that you still have M, H, C or B to eliminate. The absolute worst. Hot then you’re cold, yes then you’re no-type behavior.
Is unpredictability exciting sometimes? Sure! But I’d expect that emotional rollercoaster from the Crossword, not the Wordle. Wordle is supposed to be the reliable sweetheart! It’s not supposed to be having these communication problems and playing all these mind games with me! But alas — still can’t stay away from it. Such is love and life and NYT games.
- Connections
Those who know me well in real life might be surprised I ranked this one above the Wordle, given that vocabulary-based games are usually my forte. And it’s true — I had a hard time resolving this tiebreaker. Ultimately, the verdict came down to two factors: (1) how fun it is and (2) how effective it is at helping me sleep.
Connections hits the sweet spot along both those axes. The gradated difficulty levels, the sheer abstrusity of some “connections,” the way it stretches your logic-ing muscles — nothing gets my ex-GT kid brain going the way this game does. It deludes me into thinking that my brain hasn’t been utterly rotted through by sleep deprivation yet. I sleep easier at night, holding that blithely delusional reassurance close to my heart.
- The Spelling Bee
Last but certainly not least. If anything, this game is Too Much™.
Full disclosure — unlike the rest of the games on this list, the Spelling Bee isn’t actually part of my nightly ritual. I very, very rarely play it anymore, for reasons including but not exclusive to the fact that the last word — after two hours of guessing random letter combinations — will almost always be something ridiculous like ogee. I’m sorry, “A molding with an S-shaped profile?” O-gee, why don’t you literally [REDACTED] my [REDACTED]? (A fun exercise in imagination for our dear Hoya readers.)
Anyways. Not a game I subject myself to unless insomnia has me feeling extra masochistic.
You might be wondering, Claire! If you hate the Spelling Bee so much, why is it ranked first? Why is it even included on this list if you don’t play it? All valid questions.
The answer is that this game was my gateway into the world of NYT games. A high school teacher I liked a lot specifically recommended it to me, knowing a silly, infuriating little game like this would be catnip for my equally silly, infuriating little brain (shoutout to you, Mrs. Holmes!). And she was right; new games would come out at 3 a.m. CST and, on sleepless nights, I would be there, ready and waiting.
So — in homage to my roots, to my formative adolescent liaison with this game — I ceremoniously rank Spelling Bee in first place. I would not be here today, on NYT Games, if it weren’t for you. Incompatibility and ultimate estrangement notwithstanding, you once meant something dear to me. I will never forget that. <3
