NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Sunday, August 25

By Sam Hill and Jesse Lennox Updated August 24, 2024 9:02PM

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.

Contents

How to play Strands
Hint for today’s Strands puzzle
Today’s Strand answers

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.

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 “Into the woods”

Here’s a hint that might help you: Can’t see the forest for the…

Today’s Strand answers

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:

FOREST

Today’s Strands answers

PINE
BEECH
MAPLE
GINKGO
WILLOW
CHESTNUT
SYCAMORE

Gaming Guides Editor

Sam Hill is a journalist and the gaming guides editor at Digital Trends. He's also written tech guides for Input and has…

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Towerborne is a live-service beat ’em up — and that wild idea actually works

towerborne preview live service beat em up key art

Whenever I'm in a gaming rut and not sure what to play, I know I can always boot up a beat 'em up like Street of Rage 4, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, or Castle Crashers and have a good time. If I'm just in the mood for some mindless action, I can button-mash my way through levels as a superpowered fighter. If I want something more involved, I'll take the time to learn and execute powerful combos, as well as find ways to engage with the game's systems on a deeper level. Developer Stoic smartly recognized that this is a kind of game loop common in many live service games, so it's working with Xbox Game Studios to make a live service beat 'em up called Towerborne.

Towerborne will enter early access on Steam next month, but I had the chance to play it early at an Xbox event in Los Angeles. While I wasn't able to go hands-on with most of the social-focused systems that will make Towerborne stand out from the crowd, I can attest to its solid fantasy beat 'em up core that I can see myself sinking countless hours into when I'm back in one of those gaming ruts.

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Wordle Today: Wordle answer and hints for August 25

Someone playing Wordle on a smartphone.

We have the solution to Wordle on July 16, as well as some helpful hints to help you figure out the answer yourself, right here. We've placed the answer at the bottom of the page, so we don't ruin the surprise before you've had a chance to work through the clues. So let's dive in, starting with a reminder of yesterday's answer.
Yesterday's Wordle answer
Let's start by first reminding ourselves of yesterday's Wordle answer for those new to the game or who don't play it daily, which was "FILET." So we can say that the Wordle answer today definitely isn't that. Now, with that in mind, perhaps take another stab at it using one of these Wordle starting words and circle back if you have no luck.
Hints for today's Wordle
Still can't figure it out? We have today's Wordle answer right here, below. But first, one more thing: Let's take a look at three hints that could help you find the solution, without giving it away, so there's no need to feel guilty about keeping your streak alive -- you put in some work, after all! Or just keep scrolling for the answer.

Today’s Wordle includes the letter k.
Today’s Wordle uses two vowels.
Today's Wordle is usually done on ice.

Gaming

NYT Connections: hints and answers for Sunday, August 25

New York Times' Connection puzzle open in the NYT Games app on iOS.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Some days are trickier than others. If you're having a little trouble solving today's Connections puzzle, check out our tips and hints below. And if you still can't get it, we'll tell you today's answers at the very end.
How to play Connections
In Connections, you'll be shown a grid containing 16 words — your objective is to organize these words into four sets of four by identifying the connections that link them. These sets could encompass concepts like titles of video game franchises, book series sequels, shades of red, names of chain restaurants, etc.