NYTimes Connections puzzle has a neat new feature

The New York Times has just made it a bit easier for players to flex their word game skills.

Connections, the popular word association game from The New York Times, is getting a new feature that allows players to share their in-game stats with friends. Starting Tuesday, players can look up their information and share data with friends like the number of puzzles a person has completed, a win percentage, and a person’s streak for playing the game.

Connections is word game where players look at 4×4 array of words on a grid and try to find the hidden theme behind groups of words. Each group has four words in it, and there are four groups in total. The game gives you only four chances to guess the correct grouping so if you make more than four mistakes, you lose. It’s a daily puzzle so the difficulty can really vary depending on how obscure the solutions might be. Now, the game will give you a good look at just how good you are at it.

You can view what the new feature looks like below, but you’ll be able to share your score for that day as well as other longer-term data like the number of puzzles someone has completed and win percentage. According to Jonathan Knight, head of games at The New York Times, players can use this new features to “track, analyze, and reflect on their gameplay,” but if you’re asking me, I think it will just be a way for die-hard fans to tout their word game chops.

I have seen plenty of super hard-core competitive TikTokers flexing how fast they can beat these puzzles, and now they’ll have the data to back it up. Unfortunately, there’s still no timer. So if you’re the kind of person who gets a rush from completing a word game very, very quickly, well you’re just going to have to find another way to share your talents.