Strands

Strands is a word search puzzle published by the New York Times, with a new puzzle published daily at midnight ET. The screen displays a 6 x 8 grid of letters; the user's goal is to locate a list of themed words hidden in the grid, with the theme only hinted at by a vague clue printed above the grid.

Words appear up and down, forward and backward, and rarely ever appear in a straight line, often going in multiple directions across the grid. Words do not overlap or share letters, and every letter in the grid will be used once. A special "spangram" appears in each puzzle, with a word or phrase that encapsulates the theme going completely across the grid either top/bottom or left/right.

At the bottom left of the screen is a "hint" meter; if the user finds words that are not one of the target words the hint meter fills up. Once the hint button is full, the player can click on it to have one of the targeted words highlighted in the grid.