Quordle, Strands and Connections Answers for Sunday, October 4: Arcade Games and a Tricky Quordle

For Quordle, TechRadar said today's puzzle contained three different standard vowels, one repeated letter and none of Q, Z, X or J. No two answers started with the same letter, and the starting letters were I, R, T and A. TechRadar described the game as tricky, with multiple possibilities to navigate. ARENA proved hard because of a 'mental block of thinking of words ending in vowels,' but the N in fourth position left few other options and pointed to an N-A ending. The Daily Sequence answers were MUSIC, FLUTE, BRAWN and VIVID. Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and remains active after more than 1,500 games. A new puzzle appears at midnight in each time zone, so some players are on today's game while others are still on yesterday's.

Strands used the theme 'Grab your tokens.' Hint words included STAG, SEAT, GATES, RIDE, GORE, DECADE, SONG and BELT. The spangram had 11 letters and touched the bottom, first column and top, sixth column. The answers were PONG, FROGGER, ASTEROIDS, CENTIPEDE and SCRAMBLE, with ARCADEGAMES as the spangram. TechRadar rated it Easy and the columnist scored a Perfect. The columnist said the theme immediately suggested video games and led to a search for 'arcade,' making ARCADEGAMES the 107th Spangram First. PONG, FROGGER and ASTEROIDS were quick to find, but the lesser-played CENTIPEDE and SCRAMBLE were harder to spot. Saturday's Strands answers were MIRAGE, ILLUSION, CHIMERA, SPECTER and PHANTASM, with WILLOTHEWISP as the spangram. Strands is the New York Times word game that followed Wordle and Connections, has been running for a year and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

Connections gave players the words WIG, FILM, AUCTION, TABLE, PADDLE, COLLAR, GAVEL, LOT, BUNCH, BALL, PARTNER, NET, ROBE, HEAP, TREATMENT and STACK. The yellow group was CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT, with BUNCH, HEAP, LOT and STACK. The green group was TABLE TENNIS NEEDS, with BALL, NET, PADDLE and TABLE. The blue group was PARTS OF A JUDGE COSTUME, with COLLAR, GAVEL, ROBE and WIG. The purple group was SILENT ____, with AUCTION, FILM, PARTNER and TREATMENT. TechRadar rated the puzzle Easy, and the columnist scored a Perfect. The columnist noted that in the UK a PADDLE is called a bat, a cultural difference that slowed the start, and found the judge costume group odd for a respected role. The columnist also said missing the purple group was the real annoyance of the day. Saturday's Connections answers were CAN OPENER, HEAD WAITER, JOHN DENVER and W.C. FIELDS for terms for 'toilet'; ELBOW GREASE, FAT CATS, LINDA HAMILTON and SOMETHING WICKED for musicals; BROAD BEAN, GETTY IMAGES, MET HALFWAY and WHITNEY HOUSTON for U.S. museums; and DIET SPRITE, MERV GRIFFIN, NY GIANT and RIVER PHOENIX for fantasy creatures. Connections asks players to find groups of four items that share something in common. Green is easy, yellow is a little harder, blue is often tough and purple is usually very difficult. Players can make up to four mistakes, and the game is free on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.