If you often find yourself bored in class, looking for a mind-engaging game, try the NY Times games.
The NY Times offers a selection of free games, such as Sudoku and some premium games like The Crossword. I use these games as a way to zone out during boring classes while still challenging my brain. The New York Times games are a great way to pass the time. This is a ranking of my top 4 games on the site.
Connections
The NY Times Connections game is by far the most frustrating game on the website. The goal is to match 16 tiles into groups of four by finding a common theme among them. You have 4 mistakes you can make before you lose completely.
While this is my favorite game on the website, I often dread going to play it. The themes, some days, are just the most random, thrown-together ideas some days. This makes it almost impossible to beat that day's game. Many have made jokes about this online, making up their own crazy assortment of words with far-stretched similarities.
On other days, the themes are almost way to easy to guess and it feels like a game in a child's book. While I do like being able to beat the game, I wish there were not such a difference between each day. I wish the difficulty were more consistent.
The Mini
The Mini is just a smaller crossword, and the goal is to solve it in under a minute without using autocheck on your letters.
Most days, I am not successful with this, and I end up needing either hints or going over the time goal. While this is mostly my fault, some days I think the hints are just so random and almost impossible to guess.
I have noticed that the Mini often repeats questions throughout the year, which I think is a bit lazy of them. But then again, I am not sure how easy it is to come up with 5-letter words that could be a part of a hint.
Wordle
The Wordle is probably the most popular game on the site. The goal is to guess the five-letter word of the day in under 6 guesses.
Because there are so many 5 letter words in the English language, it is actually pretty difficult to guess the correct word. Usually, I feel that the words are pretty common and easy to guess. Somedays, however, they use uncommon words like vying or trite. These are not the words that come to my mind when I think of 5 letter words.
I have been playing this game since 9th grade, and it definitely becomes more engaging the more words you win. This is obvious, but I wouldn’t recommend playing this game if you feel you struggle with words. On the other hand, I also think this is a great way to learn new words because you can look up the meaning of the words after you get the answer.
Tiles
Tiles is a matching game that changes daily. It rotates through different themes but always has the same objective: to match all tiles with no mistakes.
I often rage quit this game because I mis-click different tiles and lose my perfect streak. It is more of a last resort game for after you have played everything else.
I love this game, however, because of the designs of the tiles. My favorite one to play is the flower theme because of the fragility of the flowers. They just look so delicate and it is not too difficult of a level.
