Quordle, NYT Strands and NYT Connections Answers for Thursday, October 8

The Quordle solutions for game #1718 were MINTY, ROWER, BROOD and RESET. The Daily Sequence answers for the same game number were KNACK, EXULT, TENSE and FILLY. Before revealing the answers, TechRadar's hints said the standard Quordle board contained three different vowels, two answers with repeated letters, none of Q, Z, X or J, and two answers beginning with the same letter. The starting letters were M, R, B and R. The guide's author wrote that he came very close to losing his winning streak and got lucky with ROWER, after the opening R-O and ending E-R combinations left roughly six possibilities for the missing letter.

For NYT Strands game #949, the theme was 'A star is born.' The answers were FAME, CELEBRITY, REPUTE, ACCLAIM, RENOWN and EMINENCE, with LUMINARY as the spangram. TechRadar said the spangram had eight letters and touched the left and right sides of the board on the fifth row. The clue words that could unlock in-game hints were MACE, CREATE, MINCE, BRAIL, CLUE, WINNER and TUNA. The guide rated the puzzle Easy and reported a Perfect score. Its author noted that the theme initially called to mind FAME after the Lady Gaga movie, then CELEBRITY was the next obvious answer, while the remaining synonyms were less obvious but still easy to spot.

For NYT Connections game #1215, the 16 words were FOOLHARDY, MINDS, THANKS, STOOGES, BEST, WISHES, REGARDS, ECLIPSE, CHEERS, MULHOLLAND, RESPECTS, STRIKES, TOP, AUTOCRUISE, HEEDS and SURPASS. The yellow group, FOLLOWS, AS RULES, contained HEEDS, MINDS, REGARDS and RESPECTS. The green group, OUTDO, contained BEST, ECLIPSE, SURPASS and TOP. The blue group, THINGS THAT COME IN THREES, contained CHEERS, STOOGES, STRIKES and WISHES. The purple group, ENDING IN ACTORS NAMED TOM, contained AUTOCRUISE, FOOLHARDY, MULHOLLAND and THANKS. TechRadar rated the puzzle Hard; its author finished with three mistakes, after initially wasting attempts on a guessed greetings-and-salutations group and later spotting the hidden Toms.

The guides also included the previous day's results. For Wednesday, October 7, Quordle #1717 answers were PALER, FROTH, DOZEN and ERASE. NYT Strands #948 answers were BUBBLEGUM, BARBIE, SHOCKING, QUARTZ and FLAMINGO, with TICKLEDPINK as the spangram. NYT Connections #1214 groups were SAVE FOR LATER, KINDS OF BUNS, GREEK NUMERICAL PREFIXES and BEST _____ TONY AWARDS. TechRadar said a new puzzle appears at midnight each day for each player's time zone, meaning some players are always on today's game while others are on yesterday's.