Need support for today's NYT strand? Today's theme, “The Name of the Game,” is really vague, but with one or two answers on the board, it should be obvious.

Below are some helpful hints for Strand #256 and the answers when you need them. We will start with the hints and then lead you to the full answer to Strand #256.

WARNING: There are spoilers for Strand #256.

The official theme for NYT Strands #256 is... The Name of the Game.”

And here's an unofficial hint from me: “Board Game Detective.”

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words that will give you valuable hint tokens:

Still having trouble? Spangram gives you a hint on conjunctions. Today, it starts with a “C” and ends with an “S.”

Scroll down to see what it is.

CLUESUSPECTS.

Now, what's the answer to today's game #256 strand?

Drumroll please.

... Spangram was CLUESUSPECTS.

Strands #256

“Name of the game”

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Hello Strands fans! One of the puzzles that once again rears its head is the transatlantic cultural differences. The board game “Clue” is called “Cluedo” in the UK, where I am from.

But before I tell you that story, I must share how I was sent off in the wrong direction by the “name of the game” theme, finding “HIDESEEK” spelled across from left to right and thinking it was spangram.

But it turns out that it is not that kind of game we are looking for. Nor are we looking for “CARDS”.

Thankfully, I found PEACOCK in the upper right corner. However, even though Mrs Peacock is in the UK version, I still didn't notice it until I saw (Professor) PLUM in the hints.

I still wasn't sure how “CLUE” could be a spangram, so I decided to cut the other characters instead. (Miss) SCARLET was in the upper left corner and (Rev.) GREEN was near the far right. (Colonel) MUSTARD completed the characters I had heard of in the lower left.

This left enough space to complete the CLUESUSPECTS spangram, but fortunately there was only one word that could be made from the remaining letters: ORCHID. I had never heard of this letter and assumed it was unique to the U.S. version, but apparently Dr. Orchid replaced Mrs. White in 2016.

Are you reading this late in the day? The full article on Strand's solution to yesterday's Round 255 can be found here.