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Sam Raimi produces an action movie that bites off more than it can chew in “Boy Kills World,” starring Bill Skarsgård.

If you buy a ticket purely to experience the action scenes of Boy Kills World, you might get your money’s worth. They’re spread out at irregular intervals, but they’re usually a treat. One of them even features Yayan Ruhian, aka Mad Dog from The Raid, one of the defining action movies of the 21st century. This buys the film — which stars IT‘s Bill Skarsgård and boasts horror legend Sam Raimi as a producer — some fleeting credibility, if nothing more. Yet there’s no getting around the fact that Boy Kills World can be a difficult watch.

The fights, drawn from the deep well of Southeast Asian action cinema, are generally shot and choreographed with expertise. However, getting to them requires sitting through an amateurish dystopian comedy-drama with flimsy political wallpapering. There’s a stark difference between what debuting director and co-writer Moritz Mohr brings to the table and the flourishes provided by stunt coordinator and second unit director Dawid Szatarski. The result is two wildly disparate approaches being smashed together with reckless abandon.

Only one of these stylistic halves really works, and without the foundation of the other in place, Boy Kills World seldom stands on its own. The brutal, tongue-in-cheek action scenes are a roller coaster, but Mohr’s beats of drama, dialogue, and even comedy repeatedly bring this ride to a jarring halt. 

‘Boy Kills World’ plays like a half-baked ‘Hunger Games.’

The film draws from an array of influences from Japanese anime and American YA fiction — specifically, The Hunger Games — leading to an attempted synthesis of East and West that never fully melds. The film’s equivalent of Katniss Everdeen is the unnamed protagonist, “Boy” (Bill Skarsgård), a revenge-driven martial artist, trained by a mysterious shaman (Ruhian) in a forest ever since he was a child.

Boy’s single-minded mission is to take down the Van Der Koys, an ostentatiously dressed media family led by sisters Hilda (Famke Janssen) and Melanie (Michelle Dockery). Their jack-booted thugs run the nearby capital city, and frequently round up civilians for a ritualistic “culling.” Such a slaughter killed Boy’s mother and sister several years ago, maiming him and leaving him unable to hear or speak. However, Boy’s acerbic inner voice narrates much of the film, commenting on each development.

This internal monologue is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob’s Burgers), whose timing and raspy, caricatured intonations create comedic expectations at every turn. The film certainly tries to follow suit, starting with drug-fueled training montages, and scenes of Boy arguing with the specter of his slain younger sister (the angel on his shoulder, played precociously by 10-year-old Quinn Copeland). However, as soon the plot kicks into high gear and Boy begins violently working his way up the Van Der Koy family ladder, the perspective widens to encompass a number of half-baked supporting villains who are far less entertaining.

Brothers-in-law Glen (Sharlto Copley) and Gideon Van Der Koy (Brett Gelman) bicker in the form of “jokes” that are usually expletive-laden insults with no real set-up. The more they’re on screen, the flimsier the movie’s world-building becomes. The social mechanics of Boy Kills World‘s premise leave plenty to be desired: The only real information we have about the fascist Van Der Koys is their white ethnicity, their Dutch last name, and their use of a militarized, mostly white police force to oppress numerous non-white extras from multiple backgrounds (though plenty of white extras can be seen as well). None of this feels accidental. These echoes of real colonial power might suggest the movie is set in an alternate South Africa where apartheid never ended. (It was also filmed on location in South Africa.) But in the end, these ideas never quite come together in any meaningful way.

Mohr shows little interest in what these political images mean — let alone what it means for Boy, a white liberator, to be the only one seen standing up to the Van Der Koys for most of the runtime. This is a distinctly “turn your brain off” kind of movie, though in slipping that switch, what’s left to pass through the lizard brain isn’t always entertaining enough.

Boy Kills World is a completely malformed comedy-drama.

The POV through which the story is told is a joke half-considered. Benjamin is an accomplished voice actor with impeccable comic timing, but he’s given little to work with. Boy, it turns out, can read lips, and his internal monologue provides wry observations for the benefit of the audience. These serve to make Boy an amusing anchor for the story. Skarsgård’s eyes were his most terrifying tool when he played Pennywise the Clown. Here, he uses them to guide the viewer through the film’s mile-a-minute jokes, including the ones that might not fully land. It’s a performance composed of reaction shots, even though the character is reacting to his own sarcasm at times.

However, apart from one small gag about a character who speaks in mumbles and thus can’t be understood, Boy Kills World isn’t really a movie where disability is meaningfully woven into its story, nor it is one where sound (or lack thereof) plays an important part in its craft. 

Boy’s lip-reading is taken for granted in practically every scene, with staging paying no attention to how he might be able to view people’s lips moving. Yet he absorbs every bit of information conveyed in dialogue, and his hearing impairment plays practically no function within the plot, which makes for uninteresting drama. There are few misunderstandings in the process, and only one memorably funny gag; it involves a cheese grater, which dovetails nicely into some vicious action too. But it has little to do with the way Boy exists within the world he kills, or communicates with the people he fights.

The disconnected storytelling of Boy Kills World kills its charms. 

Mundane dialogue carries too much of the film’s storytelling to keep things compelling — or even clear. What the senior members of the Van Der Koy family actually do, or how they rule with an iron fist, seems known to everyone, including Boy. But left unspoken, this isn’t meaningfully established in any way until it’s immediately relevant to the plot. For instance, a Hunger Games-esque TV broadcast where the cruelty is the point turns out to be a central fixture of this world. However, it arrives so late and suddenly that rather than strike fear through anticipation, it feels like an afterthought. 

This approach also knee-caps any plot twists. Boy Kills World‘s out-of-left-field reveals aren’t hard to understand, but they are built on character dynamics so flimsy that figuring out plot implications takes precedence over confronting personal betrayals. There’s plenty of “what” but very little “who,” “how,” or “why.”

That said, when the chips are down, and the movie switches from dialogue to action mode, like a video game returning from an overlong cut scene back to its game mechanics, Boy Kills World temporarily bursts to life. 

The action in Boy Kills World is worthwhile. 

Along his fight up the Van Der Koy ladder, Boy befriends an enslaved factory worker, Basho, played by Warrior‘s Andrew Koji, an actor with plenty of on-screen action chops. Together, they engage in some pretty fun and gnarly fisticuffs, including against a prison guard who inhales some mysterious drug that turns him into a rage zombie. This drug is neither established beforehand nor does it come up ever again, but in the moment, it’s delightfully silly.

The aforementioned horror-comedy-inspired scene also exemplifies the kind of gonzo action glimpsed throughout Boy Kills World. Skarsgård delivers a committed physical performance, jumping and leaping around in animalistic fashion — he’s the real Monkey Man — while Szatarski stages and captures each fight with both geographical clarity and an emphasis on impact. It’s a low bar that many American action movies fail to clear (Monkey Man included). Boy Kills World excels beyond this bare minimum, thanks to some loopy, psychedelic imagery that only seems to crop up during fights, as well as momentum-filled drone photography that makes each combat sequence feel truly alive.

Then again, these are strung together by dead dramatic weight, and a story that grows increasingly somber and self-serious as the film goes on, without any thematic or emotional resonance. Were Boy Kills World released as a mere supercut of its action scenes, it would be an incredibly worthwhile watch. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. The result is a movie split down the middle, torn between the stellar action choreography of a stunt coordinator who could very well make the jump to directing (à la John Wick filmmakers David Leitch and Chad Stahelski) and a filmmaker whose debut would be dead on arrival were it not for Szatarski’s skills. 

Boy Kills World opens in theaters April 26.

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Answers to each clue for the April 26, 2024 edition of NYT’s The Mini crossword puzzle.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times‘ revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player’s flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

Here are the clues and answers to NYT’s The Mini for Friday, April 26, 2024:

Across

Imperfection in a diamond

The answer is flaw.

Bit of cheek makeup

The answer is blush.

Tall and lean

The answer is urges.

Compulsions

The answer is lanky.

Something shared by wetlands and woodwinds

The answer is reed.

Down

Roadside emergency marker

The answer is flare.

Glute-strengthening exercise

The answer is lunge.

The “A” of FAQ

The answer is asked.

Fundamental reasons

The answer is why’s.

Zoom call effect for a distracting background

The answer is blur.

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“The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed”, Joanna Arnow’s debut, is a funny, BDSM-flavored comedy about a woman searching for meaning in life. Review.

Acerbic and bleakly funny, Joanna Arnow’s feature debut is as intentionally awkward and opaque as its mouthful of a title: The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed. At once overstated in its dialogue and restrained in its visual style, it follows a thirty-something Brooklyn woman through a series of sexual encounters and situationships, as she tries to find what satisfies her — in bed, and in life.

The film’s withholding nature makes for a perfect handshake with its glum protagonist — played by Arnow herself — whose disconnect from the world around her motivates amusing aesthetic turns. Tonally, it’s a work that consistently simmers on a medium flame, underscored by a purposeful sense of millennial dissatisfaction.

It’s also incredibly frank with its depictions of kink and sexuality. It presents physical intimacy as an act so casual — even unremarkable — that its sex scenes and plentiful, full-frontal nudity harbor not even an ounce of trepidation or shame. The result is a relaxing, remarkably self-assured film about uncertainty.

What is The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed about?

The film opens with Ann (Arnow), a mostly quiet and assuming woman, lying naked in bed with Allen (Scott Cohen), an older man she’s been involved with for a decade. Despite the longevity of their affair, she hasn’t found the right sexual rhythm with him, or a rhythm of any sort. Their conversations are brief and blunt, and while their sexual escapades involve experimental powerplay and complicated instructions, nothing he does seems to work for her.

Ann has a vague idea of what she wants — to be dominated with passion — but specificity, and being brought to orgasm by a sexual partner, always seem to elude her. This lack of spark and excitement bleeds into her everyday interactions, whether with her coworkers at her mundane office job, or her overbearing Jewish family, with whom she doesn’t really click. She doesn’t talk as much as they do, nor does she seem to really listen (a flaw of which she subtly accuses Allen without recognizing it in herself).

Across the film’s 87 minutes — divided into 5 chapters, whose names become a running gag — she begins seeing numerous different partners in an effort to find a new “master,” each more neurotic than the last, until she finds a man with whom she’s comfortable. Along the way, she becomes a willing participant in various humiliation rituals, sexual encounters the movie mirrors with her attempts to reconnect with her much more outgoing and well-adjusted older sister. In either case, something’s missing, and until she finds what that is, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed takes on a languid appearance, with filmmaking and comic timing that verge on the absurd.

Joanna Arnow’s filmmaking is precise and absurd

Nearly the entire movie is filmed at a distance, using carefully crafted long and medium shots that capture Ann’s movement within space. The camera almost never moves, allowing life — in all its idiosyncratic hues — to play out uninterrupted.

Arnow, who also wrote and edited the film, proves herself a singular voice with the way she crafts each scene: purposefully and unconventionally. Whether a mechanical sex scene, or an equally humdrum conversation, she drops the audience in the middle of ongoing physical, verbal and emotional transitions, and cuts away as soon the central point of a scene — its emotional essence — has come to the fore.

This gives the film a feeling of weightlessness despite its gloomy tone, as though it were a stone casually skipping across a pond. Few debut features have been this downright easy to watch, welcoming viewers with open arms into Arnow’s world of sexual self-discovery, in which she spends nearly every scene completely naked.

There isn’t a wide range of emotional or aesthetic contrast from start to finish, though that’s sort of the point. However, when Ann’s rut becomes more intense and inescapable, the film too begins to feel like a ticking clock, going back and forth between sex scenes, work conversations, and uneventful family dinners faster and faster, as though they were fleeting obligations.

But when Ann finally meets Chris (Babak Tafti), a sweet man who doesn’t quite share the same sexual interests, but is much more interested in her as a person, the film finally switches gears, albeit ever so slightly. It seems to gain its missing spark in the form of establishing shots of the bustling city, the occasional close-up, and dialogue that sounds at least partially (if not fully) engaged, rather than the monotone delivery that has defined each interaction thus far.

It’s hardly the kind of movie where time stands still, or where its quiet absurdism gives way to some euphoric formal sweep. But there’s a noticeable enough injection of energy, when Ann and Chris connect, that it introduces the possibility of some phantom happiness — not necessarily within immediate reach, but somewhere on the horizon.

A major reason this transition works, however, is the film’s performances, which Arnow both leads and directs with clear-cut vision akin to Greek Weird Wave virtuosos like Christos Nikou and Yorgos Lanthimos.

Joanna Arnow delivers a fine-tuned, vulnerable performance

As Ann, Arnow turns inward, playing each emotion close to her naked chest, and burying it under the kind of uncertainty that has festered so long that it’s become an unremarkable equilibrium. Though she didn’t originally write the role for herself, it’s hard to imagine anyone else embodying it so completely, with a sense of complete physical comfort in front of the camera, and a commitment to the kind of laconic line delivery that runs the risk of feeling robotic.

The film’s performances, across the board, often ride all the way up to that line, with awkward spoken dialogue that lack contractions or colloquialisms, but are imbued with sharp intention. The silent gaps between each line result in scenes feeling as though they’ve been sapped of all urgency and passion, leaving behind a depressed husk of a woman who drifts between work and home and family, in search of some missing part of herself.

When she finally seems to find this missing piece, Arnow’s performance (along with Tafti’s) is ever-so-subtly modulated in tone. Ann and Chris, unlike so many other characters in the film, feel engaged — with each other, and with their surroundings — and fill the silences not with animus, but with a subtle sense of comfort and contentment. It’s a wry film about little victories, told through a brusque tale of sexual experimentation, and finding oneself incrementally through the fog of daily existence.

How to watch: The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed is in theatres from April 26.

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Watch Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid in La Liga for free from anywhere in the world.

TL;DR: Stream Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid in La Liga for free on ITVX. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

Real Madrid haven’t been officially confirmed as La Liga champions just yet, but a few more wins should do the job. Next up for Carlo Ancelotti’s side is a trip to San Sebastián to play Real Sociedad. It’s not going to be an easy game, but any team with Bellingham, Vinicius Junior, Kroos, and so many more stars will always be favorites.

If you want to watch Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid?

Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid kicks off at 3 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. BST on April 26. This fixture takes place at the Anoeta Stadium in San Sebastián, Spain.

How to watch Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid for free

Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid will be broadcast live on ITV4, with free live streaming available on ITVX.

ITVX is geo-restricted to the UK, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK. This process makes it look like you’re connecting from the UK, so you can access ITVX from anywhere in the world.

Unblock ITVX by following these simple steps:

Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

Open up the app and connect to a server in the UK

Visit ITVX

Stream Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid for free from anywhere in the world

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading VPNs do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By making the most of these offers, you can gain access to ITVX without actually spending anything. This is not a long-term solution, but it gives you plenty of time to stream Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid in La Liga before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for ITVX?

ExpressVPN is the best service for streaming live sport on ITVX, for a number of reasons:

Servers in 105 countries including the UK

Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

Fast connection speeds free from throttling

Up to eight simultaneous connections

30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Stream Real Sociedad vs. Real Madrid in La Liga for free with ExpressVPN.

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Watch the 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix for free from anywhere in the world.

TL;DR: Watch the 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix for free on ServusTV. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

We’ll let you in on a little secret: MotoGP is where the really fun racing can be found. Sure, F1 gets most of the attention. But MotoGP is far less predictable and a whole lot more fun. If you’re into watching extremely talented riders constantly swapping positions on very fast bikes, you should check out MotoGP.

If you’re interested in watching the 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix, we’ve got all the information you need.

When is the 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix?

The MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix takes place at the Circuito de Jerez – Ángel Nieto. The 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix race starts at 8 a.m. ET / 1 p.m. BST on April 28.

How to watch the 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix for free

Every MotoGP 2024 race is available to live stream for free on ServusTV.

ServusTV is geo-restricted to Austria, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Austria, meaning you can bypass geo-restrictions to access ServusTV from anywhere in the world.

Unblock ServusTV by following this simple process:

Sign up for a VPN (like ExpressVPN)

Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

Open up the app and connect to a server in Austria

Connect to ServusTV

Watch MotoGP for free from anywhere in the world

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can watch MotoGP live streams without fully committing with your cash. This obviously isn’t a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch the 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix without actually spending anything.

If you want to retain permanent access to the best free streaming platforms from around the world, you’ll need a subscription. Fortunately, the best VPN for streaming sport is on sale for a limited time.

What is the best VPN for MotoGP?

ExpressVPN is the top choice for unblocking free streaming platforms like ServusTV, for a number of reasons:

Servers in 105 countries including Austria

Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

Strict no-logging policy so your data is protected

Fast streaming speeds free from throttling

Up to eight simultaneous connections

30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Watch the 2024 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix for free with ExpressVPN.

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Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Punjab Kings in the IPL for free from anywhere in the world.

TL;DR: Watch Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Punjab Kings in the IPL for free on JioCinema. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The 2024 IPL season is in full swing, and as we approach the fourth week of matches, who’s next in line?

Cricket enthusiasts will be eagerly awaiting the next fixture as the Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings will soon take to the pitch. Fans can expect to see players such as Shreyas Iyer and Shikhar Dhawan in the lineup for the 42nd match of the season.

Hooked on the action? Don’t worry, you can watch all the IPL games including Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Punjab Kings for free from anywhere in the world. Keep reading to find out how.

When is Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Punjab Kings?

Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Punjab Kings starts at 3 p.m. BST on April 26. This fixture will be played at the Eden Gardens cricket stadium in Kolkata, India.

How to watch Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Punjab Kings for free

JioCinema is giving you the chance to live stream every IPL cricket match this season in 4K resolution on its app, for free.

JioCinema is geo-restricted to India, but by using a VPN, you can bypass this geo-restriction. VPNs can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in India, meaning you can access JioCinema from anywhere in the world.

Unblock JioCinema to stream the IPL 2024 by following these simple steps:

Sign up for a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

Open up the app and connect to a server in India

Visit JioCinema (you will need an Indian phone number to subscribe)

Watch Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Punjab Kings for free from anywhere in the world

Most of the best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do offer free trials or money-back guarantees. By utilizing these offers, you can watch IPL live streams without parting with your cash. This isn’t a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch your favorite IPL fixtures for free.

What is the best VPN for JioCinema?

ExpressVPN is the best service for unblocking JioCinema, for a number of reasons:

Servers in 105 countries including India

Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

Fast connection speeds

Up to eight simultaneous connections

30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for £82.82 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Stream the IPL for free with ExpressVPN.

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Here’s the answer for “Wordle” #1042 on April 26, as well as a few hints, tips, and clues to help you solve it yourself.

Oh hey there! If you’re here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we’re serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today’s answer.

If you just want to be told today’s word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for April 26’s Wordle solution revealed. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Wordle.

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website’s creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn’t any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle‘s Hard Mode if you’re after more of a challenge, though.

Here’s a subtle hint for today’s Wordle answer:

Self-obsessed.

Does today’s Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no letters that appear twice.

Today’s Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with…

Today’s Wordle starts with the letter V.

The Wordle answer today is…

Get your last guesses in now, because it’s your final chance to solve today’s Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to Wordle #1042 is…

VAPID.

Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

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Connections is a New York Times word game that’s all about finding the “common threads between words.” How to solve the puzzle.

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for April 26’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections?

The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

Tweet may have been deleted

Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

Tweet may have been deleted

Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories

Want a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

Yellow: Stuffy Downton Abbey vibes

Green: Nautre’s skin toner

Blue: Heart to heart

Purple: Words that are also numbers

Here are today’s Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:

Yellow: Refined Sensibility

Green: Catch Some Rays

Blue: Emotionally Sway

Purple: Numbers with First Letters Replaced by “S”

Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to Connections #320 is…

What is the answer to Connections today

Refined Sensibility: ELEGANCE, GRACE, STYLE, TASTE

Catch Some Rays: BAKE, BASK, SUN, TAN

Emotionally Sway: AFFECT, IMPACT, MOVE, TOUCH

Numbers with First Letters Replaced by “S”: SEN, SIGHT, SINE, SOUR

Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Is this not the Connections game you were looking for? Here are the hints and answers to yesterday’s Connections.

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A review for Aggro Crab’s Another Crab’s Treasure for the PS5

My experience with Another Crab’s Treasure can be summed up with the following observation: after 20 hours adventuring the ocean floor, the game crashed during the final cutscene.

A refreshing take on the soulslike genre, Another Crab’s Treasure is the latest game from Seattle-based developer Aggro Crab, makers of other indie hits Going Under and Subway Midnight. And while the game markets itself heavily as an attempt to be the cute soulslike, at its core it’s an action-platformer with some very dark and existential themes. At times really fun and sometimes really frustrating, Another Crab’s Treasure is a memorable entry-level souls-like that is, unfortunately, plagued with performance issues.

Another Crab’s Treasure is a cute — but bleak — undersea journey

Set under the sea, the game’s hero is Kril, a hermit crab who spent most of his life topside until one day when his shell gets repoed by a loan shark. Kril’s adventure takes him into the ocean, wearing trash as protection, on a quest to get his shell back. During this mission, he discovers that the sea below him is polluted by trash and is being slowly corrupted by its gunk — meaning whether he likes it or not, he might be the only one who can save it.

Unlike some games I’ve reviewed like Harold Halibut, which use mild critiques of late-stage capitalism as set dressing for their stories, Another Crab’s Treasure is a brutal satire that isn’t afraid to feed players a message loud and clear: how we live truly fucking sucks. Throughout the story, Kril quickly learns the undersea society he’s been avoiding lives and breathes the trash and pollution his fellow surface-dwellers produce. The game’s hub city, New Carcinia, runs on trash, with all goods and services using microplastics as its currency.

In the city, you’ll quickly notice the clear wealth disparity between the citizens in the upper and lower levels. In the Upper Crust, the roads are CVS receipts, with houses made from coral and expensive bottles of whiskey. Down below, there’s a stark lack of any type of road along with the building built from wonky boxes of cardboard. Even though it’s all junk, talking with city-goers will make it obvious that to them, there’s a difference between good trash and bad trash.

It’s hard to take a lot of Upper Crusters seriously when they flex their clothing to you — made from silica gel packets and discarded orange peels — whereas the lower city inhabitants wear literal garbage bags as dresses. It’s all one big, unified trash concept, and it’s a sort of subtle, but at times very explicit, form of environmental storytelling that is built into the details.

The creatures that inhabit New Carcinia and the ocean around them are memorable if a bit one note. Firth is a blue hermit crab who is an obvious riff on annoying libertarian tech bros; Neema is a motherly, down-to-earth crab who runs the dive bar with her two daughters in the poor part of town and lives just one day at a time; Chitan is a noble lobster knight who seeks for the power to save the ocean.

Aggro Crab’s cute soulslike is unabashedly a critique of how man-made climate change and pollution are destroying our planet. It’s refreshing to see a developer take an actual stand for an issue rather than just dance around it hoping not to make anyone upset. Despite all the charm and color, Another Crab’s Treasure grapples with a form of existential dread that’s just as gloomy as any other soulslike without being a grimdark medieval European fantasy.

Another Crab’s Treasure is a Soulslike at its core

Like many other genre imitators, Another Crab’s Treasure‘s combat is of the dodging, rolling, and slashing variety. However, it’s not as deep as Dark Souls or Lies of P, instead, it’s sort of like Sekiro and Fallen Order — fairly static combat that meets you at your level and asks you to master what’s been handed to you. What makes Crab’s Treasure‘s combat stand out is the ability to, at any time, swap between shells filled to the brim with unique magical abilities called “umami.”

There is a heavy emphasis on shells in combat, as they serve as both your armor and access to your umami abilities. Just like everything else in the ocean, these shells are everyday human junk that’s been thrown out — from tennis balls, springs, soda cans, to even boxing gloves. Most shells have their own unique abilities that riff off their common use by humans. Soda cans can launch a magical blast of fizz; wearing fuses will shield your armor in electricity that will shock opponents that attack you; and wearing a shot glass or salt shaker can turn you into a sharp ball of glass.

Along with your “umami” abilities, you can attach stowaways to your shell. These are pieces of junk and small animals that give you enhanced abilities in combat. Examples include a sea star that grants you extra health, or a rubber band that makes you immune to electric attacks.

The combat is never that hard compared to Dark Souls, but it’s not without its challenges. After reaching the second or third major area of the game there’s a noticeable lack of enemy variety. You’ll get different enemies to fight, but they mostly all exist within the same archetypes — except now they do more damage. Additionally, there is a deliberateness to the combat meant to punish button mashers. This includes input lag and a lack of I-frames when dodging. But it’s not always clear where intentional challenge ends, and performance issues (I’ll get to those in a minute) begin. I can’t tell, for instance, if the game doesn’t recognize that I’m trying to heal myself, or if I’m timing the command wrong or something.

As if to try and be fair to the player in light of the added challenges, certain gameplay elements make things much easier too. Enemies telegraph their moves to an annoying extent. And if somehow combat is still giving you trouble, the game has accessibility features that can negate damage, add extra I-frames, or even give you a gun that insta-kills enemies (that is not a joke, I swear to God).

At its heart though, Another Crab’s Treasure feels like a spiritual incarnation of classic platformers like Jak and Daxter, as there is a level of verticality you will not see in any other soulslike. As you adventure around, you can climb on fallen nets, access high areas using a fishing hook, and make long gaps by pressing and holding X, which will enable you to float through the water. It’s an invigorating mechanic for a souls-like, even though at times it’s way too frustrating – especially if, like me, you have fat fingers and while you’re floating towards a gap you accidentally press the dodge button and now you’ve air-rolled into the abyss below.

Another Crab’s Treasure is buggy

As much as I love the game’s story and characters, it’s buggy. The review copy given to me by Aggro Crab and Popagenda was played on PlayStation 5, which has had performance issues of late with games like Dragon’s Dogma 2. There were multiple instances where the game would crash, mostly from loading up new areas within the map.

During combat, Kril would mysteriously launch into the air after doing — or being hit by — certain moves. Other times had Kril getting stuck in the world’s geometry, to the point where I had to go into the menu and use the “die instantly” option so I could reset. There was an instance in grappling over a lake of gunk that caused the game to trigger the falling death animation because Kril’s hitbox would barely glide over the gunk.

Even more annoying, when nearing the end, I inadvertently warped into the final area of the game after glitching through the floor.

Some games have taken advantage of the PS5’s SSD to do things like hide their loading screens via transitional gameplay mechanics, such as taking an elevator, or by making the character navigate through a narrow crevice a-la Bloodborne or God of War. While Another Crab’s Treasure attempts this, it’s quite obvious that a cutscene or new area is being booted up because the game will freeze and stutter until it’s loaded.

Although finding shortcuts is a big component of the genre, soulslikes have long stretches of gameplay in-between areas where you can save your progress — so imagine the feeling that all your hard work can be wiped at any moment because the game often crashes trying to load up a new area. And as I said at the top of the review, during the game’s final cutscene, it crashed — which forced me to fight the final boss again just so I could watch the last half of the ending.

It’s an added layer of challenge that doesn’t add any fun, and instead sort of feels like a hostage situation.

Is Another Crab’s Treasure worth it?

For just under $30, Another Crab’s Treasure is an excellent, if a bit basic, soulslike for anyone looking to get into the genre. From its beautiful environments to its cast of charming, cute characters, the game’s story is clever, witty, and a biting reminder that we live in community with each other and not for ourselves.

However, I’d hesitate to recommend this straight away unless the game gets a hearty day-one patch to shore up its myriad performance issues on PS5. Outside of those complaints, Aggro Crab’s cute soulslike is, so far, one of the best games I’ve played this year.

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