If you've ever enjoyed an old-fashioned word-find game, you'll love Strands, one of The New York Times' online games. It's a fun daily brain-buster where you have to find words in a letter grid -- but you don't have a list, you just have to find the words all on your own.
And if you need tips and answers for Strands, Connections and Wordle, check CNET's home page daily. It's not cheating, it's just help.
Read more: Here's Today's Strands Answer for July 2
I first started playing Strands in May, when it was still in beta, but it officially launched in late June, so you can find it on The New York Times' Games site and app.
There's a theme
Once you're there, you'll see a very brief phrase that's labeled as "Today's Theme" for the puzzle. You're looking for words hidden in the word-search grid that all relate to that theme.
It's a word find, with a twist
If you see a word, click on the first letter and drag your mouse to each of the following letters, in order. You can move in any direction, just so long as the letters are directly next to each other and you move from one to the next in their proper order. Or you can just click on each letter in the order they're in the word. You have to click the last letter twice so the game knows you're done -- I forget this all the time. Each word must be four letters or more.
Your goal: Find the theme words
If you find a theme word, it'll light up in blue. You can also find words that aren't related to the theme and the game will give you one credit toward a hint. Find three such words and click the Hint button, and the puzzle shows you the letters for one of the theme words. It won't show them in order though -- you still have to unscramble them. There's generally six or seven theme words, but the number seems to vary, I guess because different lengths of words are used each day to fit the theme and fill in the entire letter grid.
Spangram explains the theme
There's a special theme word called a "spangram" hidden in the puzzle. It spans the entire puzzle, though it could be across, or top to bottom, and it describes the puzzle's theme. Get that word, and it will light up yellow.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet Ranks Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
Use these tips to win
I'm always amazed that Strands manages to use every single letter in the puzzle, plus provide enough small words for me to get all the hints I need. Here are the tips I've picked up from playing the game.
Tip No. 1: Use the theme
The themes of the puzzles are pretty general, and sometimes jokey, but don't ignore them. They're a free clue to the spangram, and if you find that first, you'll find the theme words easily. So if the theme was something like "Relish the thought," the puzzle-makers might be using "relish" to mean the food, and the spangram could be "condiments."
Tip No. 2: Shoot for the spangram
It's easy to find short words in the puzzle, but swing for the fences and look for the spangram first. It touches two opposite sides of the board, and sometimes it's a two-word phrase. Take your time and stare at the puzzle for a while, or even come back to it after a break from your screen. That might help you find answers.
Tip No. 3: Use your hints well
You can treat Strands like any word-search puzzle and just look for hidden words that match the theme. But if you're like me, you're going to want to get hints. As long as the word is four letters or more, it counts. You can also reuse a hint word if you can add an ending to it, like an S (in other words, if there's an S touching the last letter, or a longer ending, like ES, that moves out from the last letter).
Tip No. 4: Hints are valuable
If you find three non-theme words, you can click on the Hint button and the letters for one of the theme words will light up on the board. Yet sometimes I still struggle to unscramble the letters. You could use an online anagram solver to see what words can be made from those letters. But there's another way: Once you have an active hint on the board, meaning the letters are lit up, just not in order, find enough words to earn another hint. Because you've already got that active hint on the board, your new hint will reveal the actual word by highlighting each letter in order.
Read more: Here's Today's Wordle Answer and Connections Answer