A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone - which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Sunday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, October 19 (game #861).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Today's NYT Connections words are...

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles...

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

The answers to today's Connections, game #862, are...

It was extraordinarily tempting to connect K, POP, DEMON and HUNTER (Connections has done groups like this before where you think it's too obvious) but I stopped before taking the plunge.

I surprised myself by getting the four tiles that made up AFFLICTION, but immediately thought: if that is the yellow/easiest group then what chance do I have of getting through this round?

Seeing no connections from the remaining 12 tiles and thrown by the short words, I shuffled the tiles until something made sense. Because they all sounded vaguely mythical, I put together CENTAUR, CAPRI, LYRE, and HUNTER - which gave me a mistake, but also a "one away".

Not really knowing what I was doing, I took out CAPRI and replaced it with BIG BEAR. Then, in the recesses of my memory I remembered that K (potassium) and AS (arsenic) were both periodic table symbols and guessed that I and BE were too.

And thus, I somehow fluked my way through this game and then kicked myself after the purple reveal. Kudos if it was all obvious to you.