Today's Connections Hints and Answers for January 1, 2024 (Puzzle #570)

It's a brand new year and with it came a new Connections puzzle. Today's puzzle is a good one to start with and is in a sort of middle ground in terms of difficulty. It's good to start the new year strongThen you might need some tips to help you start the year off on the right foot. Luckily, there's not much to worry about with this puzzle, and with just a few clues, you'll be off to the races.

If you're looking for a different puzzle to try this year, NYT Mini crossword puzzle is a fun game that takes the best parts of the traditional newspaper puzzle and condenses them into something smaller. It's short and sweet, with just the right amount of challenge to get your brain working without wasting most of the day to get it done. There are many other puzzle options out there, but this one doesn't take long and gives you that feeling of satisfaction when finished.

Today's Connections Category Tips

JANUARY 1 #570

Categories today have an interesting mix and some words can easily be confused and end up somewhere else. However, some of the other words are fun and fit with the holiday theme. This can cause conflicting feelings and make solving the puzzle difficult. However, a few clues may be enough to change that.

• A category is about a group of creatures that share a common characteristic
• One category is about things that can light up the sky
• A category is about things that are all associated with a particular place
• A category consists of four words that end with a different word that shares a common meaning

If you want a little more help with today's puzzle, there are more ways to provide it to you. Let's go start with the category names and then the full spoilers.

	STICKY ANIMALS
	THINGS THAT LUMINESCE
	DUTCH SYMBOLS
	ENDING WITH SYNONYMS FOR "DIPPED"

Today's Connections Answers

JANUARY 1 #570

Yellow Answers: Revealed and Explained

This category was pretty easy and funny once I realized what was going on. EARTHWORM is unique enough to catch my attention very quicklyand I saw SALAMANDER soon after. SLUG was also pretty easy to add, but for some reason, my brain just didn't see the word EEL for a minute. After that, I was able to put everything together and move on to the next category. This was a fun category, in my opinion, and I was pleased with how it went.

Green Answers: Revealed and Explained

I also really liked this category and thought it matched the day of the year. It's very reminiscent of the bright lights and fireworks we use to celebrate. I saw FIREFLY and GLOWSTICK, and that was the first part that gave me a clue. I started looking for other things that could shineand AURORA was an easy inclusion. It took me a moment to connect the dots on RADIUM, but not long. It was nice to think about all the pretty colors before getting into the hardest part of the puzzle.

Blue Answers: Revealed and Explained

I actually got this one last as I managed to get the purple tier first. There were a lot of water-related words in the last part of the puzzle, and figuring out whether they matched or not was a challenge. However, after eliminating that assumption, I had to figure out what the other connection was. I saw there were 5 obvious compound wordsand knowing how these puzzles usually work, I pursued this idea first. So I was left with this to finish.

Purple Answers: Revealed and Explained

I knew I needed to eliminate a word from the list of compound words. I was trying to figure out what the common denominator was. The end of the words caught my attention more than the beginning of them, so I was focusing more on that than anything else. I first noticed “drop” and “fall”, and of them, the only word that didn’t fit this same idea was “mill”, so I deleted WINDMILL and guessed the rest, which fortunately was correct.

Other games like connections

If you want to spend the day relaxing, check out the puzzles in the box below to see which one might please you.