In short. A word grouping game is played with sixteen shuffled words that make up four families of four. You have to find those families: fruit, tools, words hiding an animal, phrases that end the same way. The difficulty comes from words that seem to fit two families at once. In Clan, you sort the words into rows by swapping them, a row locks as soon as it holds a family, and some families fold into a single tile that joins a bigger family.
- 4Words per family. Not three, not five.
- 100Levels in each of six languages.
- 0Timers, lives lost or swaps held against you.
The rule fits in three lines
The board lays words out in rows of four. Every word belongs to exactly one family, and every family has four words. You swap words two at a time until each row holds one family.
As soon as a row holds four words from the same family, it locks by itself: it takes on its colour, its name appears on top, and nobody touches it again. When every family is together, the level is done. The meerkat clan shows up to celebrate, which is roughly the only thing meerkats know how to do as a group.
There is no timer and no mistake limit. You can swap two words a hundred times just to see. Nobody counts. Well, the counter at the top counts, but it takes nothing away from you. It is there for your pride.
The fold: a family inside a family
This is what sets Clan apart from other games of the genre. Some families are nested. Gather Lemon, Orange, Tangerine and Lime: the row does not stay locked, it folds into a single tile named “Citrus”. Three new words arrive next to it. And that “Citrus” tile is now a word like any other, which has to join its own family: fruit, with Apple, Pear and Banana.
The first fold comes at level 3, and they return in almost every level after that. The biggest levels hold fourteen families on seven rows, seven of which fold. Some even nest two storeys deep: birds of prey become a tile that joins the birds, and the birds a tile that joins the animals. Russian dolls, but for taxonomy.
The board never grows: a fold frees three squares, and three words take them. That is how a level can hold twice as many families as rows.
Families with a hidden rule
From level 10, a level may contain one family whose link is not what the words mean. Never two in the same level, we are not monsters. In English, for example:
- words hiding an animal: Scatter, Cowardly, Bearing, Pigment;
- homophones: Right, Write, Rite, Wright, which all sound the same;
- phrases to complete: Star, Sword, Jelly, Gold, all “___ fish”;
- palindromes: Kayak, Radar, Level, Civic, which read the same both ways.
The trap is deliberate. “Gold” fits perfectly well among the metals, and that is exactly what the “___ fish” family is hoping you will think.
Where to start
- Words with only one home first. “Screwdriver” can only be a tool. A word that precise gives you the family, and often its name, before you have even started looking.
- Build on a row that is already started. Find the row where a family already has two or three words, and fetch the rest. A nearly full row is a row about to lock and free up some headspace.
- Small families fold. If a family seems to be missing a member, it is often still folded: its fourth word will be the tile born from another family. Sort the small one first.
- Read the too-easy words twice. A word that could go in two families is either a decoy or a member of a hidden-rule family. Keep it for last.
- Leave the last family alone. When all the others are sorted, the last four words lock by themselves. No need to move them.
The mistake that sends you in circles: hammering away at a family whose member is not on the board yet. You look everywhere for the fourth fruit and it is not there: it is waiting in the shape of four citrus fruits that have not been brought together yet. If a family refuses to complete, look for the other family that could give birth to its last member.
Don't ask “where does this word go?”. Ask “who else could go with it?”. The first question has ten plausible answers, the second often has one.
Why a level never gets stuck
The hundred levels of each language are put together by a program from a bank of about three hundred families, then checked one by one before they ship. Three guarantees come out of that. No word is a candidate for two families in the same level: if two families could claim “Orange”, it is dropped from both. No word is the name of a folding family, so the word “Fruit” is never confused with the “Fruit” tile. And every way of solving the level is explored, in every possible order of folds: none of them leads to a stuck board.
What the program cannot guarantee is your bad faith. A word can always seem to belong elsewhere. But within the level it has only one family, and that is the one that will lock the row.
Where this kind of game comes from
Sorting words into families is far older than any screen: activity books, quizzes and party games have done it for a long time, and nobody can seriously claim to have invented it. Not us either.
Its best-known form today, sixteen clues to split into four groups of four with traps built in, already existed on British television: since 2008, the BBC quiz show Only Connect has featured a “Connecting Wall”, where some clues are designed to seem to fit two groups.
The New York Times launched Connections in beta on 12 June 2023, with puzzles written by Wyna Liu. Sixteen words, four families, four mistakes allowed, and colours by difficulty. The day after launch, Only Connect's host Victoria Coren Mitchell pointed out the resemblance to her show. The game became one of the paper's most played, and it exists only in English.
Clan keeps the principle and changes the mechanics: you don't select four words to submit an answer, you sort the board row by row, with no mistake limit, and families nest inside each other. Clan has no connection with the New York Times. The name comes from meerkats, a group of which is sometimes called a clan, and which stand upright in a row like four tiles brought together.
In this game
The gesture
Tap two words to swap them, or drag one onto the other. Words in a locked row don't move any more: tapping them just makes the row wobble, and the meerkat gives you a surprised look that says a lot.
The hint lights up two words
The hint never writes a family's name. It picks the family closest to done and lights up two of its words: one already in its row, one wandering elsewhere. Finding the other two is up to you. You earn it by watching a short video: an ad in the app, and on the website a presentation of our Pause app that you can skip after three seconds.
Stars
Three stars with no hint, two with one hint, one beyond that. The number of swaps does not count: fumbling around is part of the game. The leaderboard adds up your stars across every language.
Six languages, six sets of words
The words follow the language chosen in Settings, and each language has its own progress. The families are not translated but written for each language: a hidden word, a homophone or a set phrase does not survive translation. If you speak two languages, you have two hundred levels.
The meerkat
It smiles when a family locks, applauds a fold, points at the hint's words, and falls asleep if you think for more than twenty-five seconds. It is not judging you. It is a meerkat.
Frequently asked questions
What are the rules of a word grouping game?
Sixteen words are shuffled and make up four families of four. You have to find each family. Some words seem to belong to two families: those are the game's traps. In Connections, the New York Times version, you are allowed four mistakes.
Can you play a game like Connections in other languages?
The New York Times Connections exists only in English. Clan takes the same idea in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese, with a hundred levels per language, free and with no account.
How is Clan different from Connections?
In Clan you sort the words by swapping them, a row locks as soon as it holds a family, and there is no mistake limit. Above all, some families fold into a single tile that joins a bigger family, which allows levels of fourteen families on seven rows.
What is a folded family?
A family that belongs to another one. When its four words are together, they become a single tile with its name, such as “Citrus”, and that tile then has to join its own family, here the fruit.
How do you spot a hidden-rule family?
When four words have nothing in common in meaning and one of them seems to fit two families, look at what they share in form: an animal hidden inside the word, the same pronunciation, a phrase to complete, a word that reads the same backwards. There is at most one per level, never before level 10.
Does the number of swaps affect the stars?
No. Stars only depend on hints: three with no hint, two with one, one beyond that. You can swap as many words as you like while you think.
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