How to make your own connections game for a team social
Pick the mix of groups, write four categories, plant a decoy, test it, then host it with a puzzle creator, or borrow TechTwitter IO's daily tech board.
To make your own connections game, write sixteen words that split into four groups of four, plant one or two words that seem to fit two groups, test it on someone who did not write it, then load it into a puzzle creator or put it on a slide. For a model of how to pitch it at a tech crowd, study the daily board in TechTwitter IO, which mixes in-jokes with groups anyone can get.
A custom board is a short writing job, and it works well as a warm-up for an all-hands, an offsite or an onboarding week.
Step 1: choose the mix before the words
The most common mistake is making every group an inside joke. New hires and guests then sit out. TechTwitter IO's boards show a better ratio. Its 2 November grid had two groups that need the week's tech news (Claude model names and AI effort levels) and two that anyone could group (email folders, and four famous video games). Copy that balance: two groups about your company or industry, two from general knowledge.
Step 2: write the four groups
Make each category specific. The New York Times' rule for its own puzzle is that a category is always narrower than "names" or "verbs", and the same rule makes a team board fair. Write more candidates than you need, then pick the four best for each group.
Here is a board we wrote for a startup team:
| Group | Words | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Funding rounds | SEED, ANGEL, BRIDGE, GROWTH | BRIDGE is the decoy |
| Card games | POKER, RUMMY, SNAP, HEARTS | Pulls BRIDGE in the wrong direction |
| Meetings | STANDUP, RETRO, OFFSITE, ALL-HANDS | The easy group |
| Blank deck | PITCH, SUN, TAPE, FLIGHT | The tricky one: each word goes in front of deck |
Step 3: add red herrings, then check for a second answer
A good board has words that look at home in two places. A broken board has two valid solutions. After you plant a decoy, try to solve the grid the wrong way. In the example, five words could be card games, but funding needs BRIDGE to reach four, so only one split works. If you can find a second split, swap a word.
Step 4: test it on one person
Hand the grid to a colleague who has not seen it. Watch where they stall. If they solve it in under a minute, add a decoy. If they are lost after five, make the tricky group more literal.
Step 5: build and host it
You have three practical options:
- A puzzle creator. The Connections Custom Puzzle Creator takes a title, four categories with a short description each, and four words per category. It refuses duplicate words and saves the board at its own link you can drop in a chat channel.
- PuzzGrid. It has a create-a-grid option and hosts thousands of user grids, which suits a board you want strangers to play too.
- A slide. For a room, a four-by-four table on screen and a timer is enough. Teams call out groups and you strike them through.
When you have no time to write one
Skip the writing and use today's TechTwitter IO board. It is free, needs no account, gives the room four mistakes, and its Morgue keeps every past edition, so you can pick a board nobody has seen yet. Since the categories come from tech Twitter, it lands best with engineering and product teams. Note that the paper around the puzzle is satire, so the headlines are jokes, not news.
A custom board is still the better choice when the point is your own company: product names, customer stories, office lore. A public board cannot know any of that.