Skip to main content

NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Saturday, October 12

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.

Recommended Videos

How to play Strands

You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters. Manipulate letters by dragging or tapping to craft words; double-tap the final letter to confirm. If you find the correct word, the letters will be highlighted blue and will no longer be selectable.

If you find a word that isn’t a theme word, it still helps! For every three non-theme words you find that are at least four letters long, you’ll get a hint — the letters of one of the theme words will be revealed and you’ll just have to unscramble it.

Every single letter on the grid is used to spell out the theme words and there is no overlap. Every letter will be used once, and only once.

Each puzzle contains one “spangram,” a special theme word (or words) that describe the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted yellow.

The goal should be to complete the puzzle quickly without using too many hints.

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s theme is “Toon time”

Here’s a hint that might help you: cartoon figures

Today’s Strand answers

NYT Strands logo.
NYT

Today’s spanagram

We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:

  • CHARACTERS

Today’s Strands answers

  • FOGHORN
  • PETUNIA
  • DAFFY
  • FOXY
  • GRANNY
  • BUGS
  • PORKY
Sam Hill
As Digital Trends' Gaming evergreen lead, Sam Hill is here to help you find your new favorite game and dive right in. The…
Best Walmart Prime Big Deal Days deals: TVs cheaper than Amazon
Walmart store logo at night.

Update 10/10/24: Prices have ebbed and flowed a bit, but nothing we spotlighted during the sale has sold out or gone back to full price.

Sure, Amazon is where Prime Big Deal Day deals started, but all of the retailers joined the online shopping frenzy, especially given that Amazon's event has technically ended. Deals at outlets like Best Buy and Walmart often turn out even better than Big Deal Day deals. Many other retailers keep their deals around longer, too. Walmart has some of the best Big Deal Day laptop deals, Big Deal Day TV deals, and more going on right now. And with so many options available for saving at Walmart we thought we'd track down all of the best Walmart Big Deal Day deals.

Read more
Metaphor: ReFantazio fixes my one big Persona pet peeve
Metaphor: ReFantazio's protagonist.

After gaining glowing reviews earlier this week, Metaphor: ReFantazio is out now. Atlus’ new RPG takes the basic gameplay of Persona but does away with its modern-day high school story. Instead, it’s a fantasy tale about a high-stakes election in a kingdom full of monsters, nefarious kings, and political strife. It’s a gripping story that justifies Metaphor’s gargantuan runtime.

I’m sure that it won’t be long until genre fans begin debating if Metaphor is “better” than Persona. It’s a silly question; despite their similarities, both games have very different tonal and narrative strengths, as well as some key differences in combat. There’s no need to pit the two against one another, but Metaphor does make a few quality-of-life changes to Persona’s formula that feel like a definitive improvement. Among the long list of big-picture tweaks, Atlus fixed my biggest pet peeve with Persona: death.

Read more
All upcoming PS5 games: 2024, 2025, and beyond
Team up abilities in Marvel Rivals

The PlayStation 5 has been out for some time now, and its reception has been mostly positive. It includes lots of quality-of-life improvements over its predecessor, the PlayStation 4, such as faster load times, a solid-state drive (SSD) instead of a regular hard disk drive (HDD), and an improved controller in the form of the new DualSense. However, a console is only as good as the games available on it and, thankfully, the PS5 has you covered on that front as well.

While the machine already has a worthy library of great PS5 games, there are even more to look forward to, with some releasing as soon as this month, while others are still years away. Some will be completely free PS5 games, some will be PS5 exclusives, and others will be completely cross-platform so you can play with friends on Xbox, PC, and Switch.

Read more