Looking for today's Connections answer, the difficulty level for puzzle #529 on November 21 was lower than yesterday's difficulty level, with Connections Companion scoring 3.3 out of 5.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. And if the hints aren't enough, see the four answers below, along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in another time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #528.

There are spoilers for connection 529. Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's connection.

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further.

Here are some bigger clues: wear your favorite shirt, buy milk tea, eat Sponge Bob, eat pasta.

Now, what's the answer to today's game #529 Connection?

Drum roll please.

I think this is the most trapped puzzle ever. There are so many threads to pull in this group of words. But I got there.

Today's puzzle was not straightforward.

As for the types of shirts, I caught flannel and oxford. Finding a polo and a t-shirt solved the problem.

When I saw boba, I already imagined milk tea. Tapioca and pearls immediately jumped out at me, but it took a little while for the bubbles to hit me. For some reason, I wanted to force it to be jelly here.

Maybe this is what they were thinking of, but Blue was thinking of Sponge Bob, which led to sponges, stars (Patrick's kind), jelly, and coral. Yes, these are all marine invertebrates, but I'm in middle school here.

I think this is the second pasta reference I've seen this week as a purple category. Someone on the Connection Crew was hungry when designing this week's group.

Anyway, today's was the beginning of pasta names, with Fett(ucine), Penn(e), Torte(llini), and Zit(i).

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 2.8 out of 5.

After yesterday's brief existential crisis, I decided to tackle today by solving puzzles before typing words. Here is how I did it.

At first glance I saw snarls and howls. Immediately I thought of wolf cries, then howls and barks. This is the yellow set.

Stream and Play caught my eye next, and Run and Air were natural discoveries as up-and-coming broadcast themes. Thus we got green.

I next concentrated on solving for blue; Garnish and Stir jumped out at me as part of the cocktail. Only Muddle and Strain made sense from there. Check out the blue. [Chain, ladder, pyramid, tree. In my mind, these were words for corporate structure, close enough to organizational structure.

It was fun trying to solve them without clicking, but it helped that today's puzzle was easier than yesterday's.