A new puzzle game, Strands, is being added to the New York Times lineup of word games, alongside Wordle and Connections.
The objective of the game is to find words that all have something in common, along with a ‘spangram’ that describes what every word has in common and touches two opposite sides of the board. Players are able to connect letters vertically, horizontally and diagonally, along with being able to switch directions in the middle of a word, allowing for a greater variety of potential solutions.
“What I saw in looking at the competition is that there aren’t as many word searches with a twist. How do we make it feel fun for adults, beyond finding words?” Juliette Seive, research director on the New York Times Games team said in an interview with New York Times.
“I hope that people like my partner and his grandma, who are nostalgic for word searches, can find a home in this game.”
“The spangram should sum things up in some way. It’s almost like a revealer in a crossworld, where it shows you what is connecting all of these words,” Tracy Bennett, Wordle and Strands editor explained in the same interview.
The idea was pitched during what New York Times refers to as a annual game jam, in which everybody pitches a game that they’d like to see join the selection of titles available through the site. Currently the available games are Wordle, Connections and Strands itself.
In other gaming news, the Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu has been forced to shut down following a lawsuit by Nintendo. The developer behind the emulator also has to pay £1.9million in damages, in addition to closing their Nintendo 3DS emulator, Citra.