Quordle, NYT Strands and Connections Answers for Tuesday, September 29

In Quordle #1709, the four answers were BILGE, MEDAL, LODGE and PORCH. The game's Daily Sequence answers were TRUCE, LARVA, LUNAR and GLAND. TechRadar's writer said three starter words gave an excellent head start and that every word became highly gettable from the beginning. The writer singled out BILGE as a favorite old-man insult and noted it is also the name of a bilge pump, equipment that removes unwanted water from the lowest part of a boat's hull. The Quordle hints noted four different standard vowels, no repeated letters, none of Q, Z, X or J, and no two answers starting with the same letter. The starting letters were B, M, L and P.

For NYT Strands #940, the theme was 'Have a heart.' The answers were PRESSURE, BLOOD, VEIN, PULSE, ARTERY and ATRIUM, with the 14-letter spangram CARDIOVASCULAR. The spangram touched the left side of the board on the fifth row and the right side on the fifth row. TechRadar rated the puzzle Easy and the writer reported a Perfect score. The writer said donating blood made the vocabulary familiar, but admitted that the word atrium first brought to mind a large glass roof in a shopping mall rather than a chamber of the heart. The writer also enjoyed finding the non-game word VERDANT. The clue words offered were VERDANT, DIARY, CLASS, CARVED, SCUM and TRAY.

NYT Connections #1206 had four groups. The yellow group, SECLUDED, contained HIDDEN, REMOTE, SECRET and TUCKED AWAY. The green group, RIVER FEATURES, contained DELTA, DRAINAGE BASIN, MOUTH and STREAM BED. The blue group, FIRST WORDS OF PIXAR FILMS, contained FINDING, INSIDE, MONSTERS and TOY. The purple group, PHRASES HIDING GREEK LETTERS, contained FREEZE TAG, HOME GAME, MODEL TANK and ORAL PHASE. TechRadar rated the puzzle Easy and reported a Perfect score. The writer said the Pixar group stood out immediately and recalled early Pixar releases, including the three-year gap between Toy Story and A Bug's Life, and Monsters Inc. as the film he had seen most often because of a child obsessed with Sully and Mike.

The Strands and Connections columns were written by Johnny, a freelance pop culture journalist. TechRadar also linked to its daily Wordle, Connections and Strands coverage and said new puzzles appear at midnight for each player's time zone, meaning some players are always playing today's game while others are playing yesterday's. The Quordle column noted that the game remains active more than 1,500 games after its launch as one of the original Wordle alternatives. The Connections column described the game as free to play on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile and said each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult. It also noted that players can make up to four mistakes, which gives some breathing room, and warned that homophones and other word tricks can disguise answers. The Strands column said the game is now a fully fledged member of the NYT games stable and has been running for a year.