No NYT Connections (in which we submit our own puzzles)

I was driving today and I spent the last half hour thinking up a Connections of my own, for your edification, I’ve never done this before, but I’m interested in learning more about the challenges of making them

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTEZwseKcpqIQW_Cf4Y

fun!

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This one is sillier but I’ve having fun trying create clues out of red herrings

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTEdbo2WYzi1LIgN_Ck

^^ that second attempt needed a revision, here it is

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTEkTr5ZPthVmjPkMYi

Good work on both

I liked them

I tried to come up with one that was like

BLANCH POACH BOIL STEEP (veg prep)
ROSE JASMINE CIVET ALCOHOL (perfume)
DOROTHY SUNFLOWER WHEAT DODGE (Kansas)
SOPHIA ATHENA TALON BURN (mispelled EU capitals)

but I’m pretty sure somebody would (should) kill me for that

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first one—i did puzzle over it more than i ever have the nyt version

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second one, nice job w/these!

I'm realising that yellow needs to be really really easy, in fact, more of a word search

I thought they were both fun and well-designed, fgti!

nice, fgti. those were fun.

I wanna do more and for other people to make them and submit them

Generally I found that it’s most fun to start with the Big Red Herring and go from there

Really enjoyed yours, fgti -- the first one, I got YGPB after five wrong guesses. 2nd was PYGB with no errors. I want to try to make one, am sketching out notes but it might take a day or two.

A few months ago in the Connections thread there was a rash of doing custom puzzles on connections.io

Found it
No way that's purple: the NYT Connections thread

Several posters made puzzles

Made a quick one, happy pride everyone:

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTIyF34A_I6kCYiI-FL

I like fgti's.

Mine
https://connectionsplus.io/game/Ci5zrb

Argggh YMP one of your greens could be one of your purples, I was flailing. Do more I love these home brews :)

Just tried making one:

https://connectionsplus.io/game/DSV9VK

wau at your purple <3

Made a Trek-themed one I thought was hard, but in retrospect is impossible -- prove me wrong!
https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTJztDY6V_IJtXqPl1f

83 incorrect but I eventually got it and I loved it so much

I made a rap one

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTKhURLoeMVlIe-nhld

Good one, Lily, I kept trying to make it Velvet Underground related (Candy, Jane, Sister) and couldn't figure out why I couldn't nail the fourth one

these are really fun thanks, a good range for me from relatively easy to impossibly fiendish (I looked at Philip's and recognized maybe 2/3 of the names but noped out immediately).

I'm working on my own, and it's p hard to tell if you're making something punishing or dead easy

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTNAn01Z8IF-7FuUzpu

like that hip-hop one

I was clueless on the rap one but I loved guessing through it anyway— thank you Whiney!

Rob I loved yours

It has been interesting while thinking about these just how much debugging is actually needed, mostly just to ensure that there isn’t a “possible fifth” that might leave the puzzler guessing angrily. In the case of that month-ago Super Mario maguffin in NYT (land, world, kart, galaxy, odyssey, iirc) the fact that “there are five answers” was itself the clue that it was the wrong road

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTNWF0o0a_2wSqCOEIY

This should be an easy one

^^ I want somebody to RR this

Isn't "possible fifth" just part of the game?

Same as "only three." If there are only three 1950s New York Yankees outfielders, then 1950s New York Yankees outfielders is not the category.

Also "ridiculous outlier." If there's only one Baskin & Robbins ice cream flavor, then it's there for another reason so it's probably something about the word.

Surprised myself on the rap one, Willie and Ham were lucky guesses.

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I’m talking about when one category has, in fact, five possible options, and it will be arbitrary to the puzzler as to which is correct.

For example, I tried to make a category of “second billed in music”: ART, TAMMI, DEAN, SARA. One of my other clues was DICK, which made me concerned that somebody might have Smothers Brothers on the mind, and so I revised. Considering that three of the four “second name” choices were from the 1960s, and one (Tegan and Sara) was 2000s, I easily imagined somebody insisting that DICK must be categorically correct, even if Dick Smothers wasn’t named specifically in the act; it needed to be changed

This is getting silly now:

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTNouURYfso2sSwMpui

And this one is devilish, for classical nerds only:

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTNvuvU3RqdURogK0gA

xp: had me convinced My Mom Thinks I'm Cool was an emo band!

Every row an eye-roller!
https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTNyr7zFdDBIuRvd3J8

Every row an eye-roller!

I LOVE IT. I guessed P correctly without hesitation :)

i gave it a try

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTO4tujRyfmlDbDWmCr

I’m talking about when one category has, in fact, five possible options, and it will be arbitrary to the puzzler as to which is correct.

i may have done this on purpose, hope that is not too evil

If there are five possibilities then one of them has another category that needs it more. So if you're stuck, you switch to another category.

geoffreyess that took me 19 incorrect guesses! philip nunez's and fgti's my one more my level.

this one might be easy... https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-OTO5xZyFqS1zDuIv5DD

I like the ledge one

lmaoooo geoffreyess @ your title

ledge's is great, I didn't grok the P before guessing it last but wow

same. and guessed my way through the rest too, can't imagine three categories i know less about :)