TechRadar Posts Sept. 30 Answers for Quordle, NYT Strands and Connections

The four Quordle answers were CHOKE, BATCH, MOSSY and EAGER, according to the TechRadar column. The writer described the round as "a close call" because EAGER was difficult to pin down, and noted that had other options remained he would most likely have entered "lager" or "cager" instead; he credited "a lack of options" with saving the solve. The separate Quordle Daily Sequence, also game No. 1710, produced STOLE, UNDUE, JOIST and SERIF.

Before revealing those words, TechRadar listed five clues. The puzzle contained three different standard vowels, counted as A, E, I, O and U rather than Y. Two of the four answers included a repeated letter. None of the letters Q, Z, X or J appeared anywhere in the answers, and no two answers began with the same letter. The starting letters were C, B, M and E.

In NYT Strands, the theme was "An instrumental destination." The in-game hint words that players could submit to unlock clues were SLIP, RINK, CRIER, ROUND, FUSE and FAMILY. The spangram contained 10 letters and touched the left side of the board on the fifth row and the right side on the seventh row. The answers were CAPO, PICK, GUITAR, DRUMS, PIANO, SYNTH and AMPLIFIER, with MUSICSTORE as the spangram. TechRadar rated the puzzle Easy and recorded a perfect score, with the writer noting he had only visited a music store twice in his life, both times to buy the cheapest item available — a guitar pick.

NYT Connections used 16 words: TAMBOURINE, SEPTUM, DECENT, BOND, MARTINI, OPTION, NOVELTY, CASINO, SPRAY PAINT, OCTOPUSSY, DONNIE BRASCO, FUTURE, BUGSY, ETCH A SKETCH, STOCK and SCARFACE. The yellow group, securities, combined BOND, FUTURE, OPTION and STOCK. The green group, things that are shaken (not stirred), combined ETCH A SKETCH, MARTINI, SPRAY PAINT and TAMBOURINE. The blue group, gangster movies, combined BUGSY, CASINO, DONNIE BRASCO and SCARFACE. The purple group, entries starting with month abbreviations, combined DECENT, NOVELTY, OCTOPUSSY and SEPTUM. TechRadar rated the puzzle Hard and reported one mistake, made with eight tiles remaining, when the writer placed MARTINI in the month-abbreviation group instead of SEPTUM. The James Bond references in BOND, OCTOPUSSY and MARTINI served as the day's red herring.

Each of the three puzzles is released at midnight in the player's time zone, so users in different regions may be working on different game numbers at the same moment. Quordle, one of the earliest alternatives to Wordle, has now passed 1,500 daily games. Strands has been part of the New York Times games lineup for about a year and is playable on desktop or mobile through the NYT Games site. Connections, which asks players to sort four groups of four items by difficulty, allows up to four mistakes and is also free on the NYT Games site.

Editor's Summary

TechRadar published the September 30 solutions for Quordle No. 1710 (CHOKE, BATCH, MOSSY, EAGER), NYT Strands No. 941 (spangram MUSICSTORE) and NYT Connections No. 1207 (securities, shaken objects, gangster films and month-prefix words). The Connections puzzle was rated Hard, with 007-themed tiles acting as a deliberate distraction. All three games reset at midnight local time, keeping players in different regions on different puzzle numbers.