Pokémon Connections
Pokémon Connections is a free daily puzzle: sort 16 Pokémon into four hidden groups. Keep guessing until you solve all four — fewer attempts is a better score. A new puzzle drops every day at midnight UTC.
About Pokémon Connections
Pokémon Connections is a free daily puzzle for Pokémon fans. Every day at midnight UTC a fresh board appears: 16 Pokémon drawn from all nine generations, hiding four secret groups. There is no sign-up, no lives to lose, and no time limit — just how few attempts it takes you to untangle the board.
The puzzles are generated under hard constraints, so every board is guaranteed to have exactly one valid solution. Purple groups deliberately overlap with the others to bait you — that is where the difficulty lives.
How to play
- Find four groups of four Pokémon that share something — a type, a colour, a generation, a Pokédex category.
- Select four Pokémon and hit Submit. Guess wrong and you keep going — there is no lose state, but fewer attempts is a better score.
- Every puzzle has exactly one valid solution: each Pokémon fits only one of the four groups.
- Groups are colour-coded by difficulty, yellow being the most straightforward and purple the most deceptive.
The four difficulty tiers, with real examples
Every board has one group from each tier. The colour is not decoration — it tells you how much the category is trying to mislead you. These are actual groups pulled from the puzzle bank.
A category you can name on sight. Usually a common elemental type or a body colour, with well-known Pokémon in it. Start here to shrink the board.
Still a single clear property, but the members are less obvious or the type is one you meet less often. Solvable once the yellow group is out of the way.
Often a generation or a less common type. Hard because you have to know the Pokédex, not because the rule is strange.
The trap. This group is scored to overlap with the other three as much as possible, so several of its members look like they belong elsewhere. Leave it for last — it usually solves itself once the others are gone.
How to actually solve a board
Connections rewards discipline more than knowledge. Five habits that cut attempt counts:
- Sort before you select. Read all 16 first and mentally tag each one — type, colour, generation. Most boards have one group that is obvious after a single pass, and locking it in removes four distractors at once.
- Count candidates, not certainties. If you can name five or six Pokémon that fit a rule, that is not a group yet — it means the puzzle is using that rule as bait for a different group. A real group has exactly four.
- Solve outward from the easiest. Each solved group removes four Pokémon from every other decision. Two solved groups usually make the last two trivial, so resist starting with the one you find most interesting.
- Use a dual-type as a probe. When a Pokémon plausibly fits two groups, ask which of those groups has exactly four members without it. That question usually answers itself.
- Leave purple alone. The trickiest group is designed to be ambiguous while the board is full. Once twelve Pokémon are gone, the remaining four are the answer regardless of whether you understand why.
Why the purple group feels unfair
The generator scores every candidate board for overlap: how many Pokémon on it look like they satisfy two or more of the four rules. Boards with high overlap are kept for Classic mode, and the group causing the most confusion is assigned to purple. So the ambiguity is deliberate and measured — but the solution is never ambiguous. Each Pokémon satisfies exactly one of the four rules; the machine checks this before a board is allowed into the bank.
Every category that can appear
Boards are built from 45 category types across 1025 species, and the current bank holds 572 puzzles. Knowing the shape of the categories is most of the game — you are not guessing at random, you are choosing between a fixed set of rules. Each card below shows a real group from the bank and how often that category comes up.
Elemental types (18)
The backbone of the game. Watch for dual-typed Pokémon: a Water/Flying Pokémon can be baited into either group, and the puzzle generator knows it.
appears in 60 groups
appears in 58 groupsAlso in this group: Bug-types · Ghost-types · Fairy-types · Normal-types · Fighting-types · Electric-types · Rock-types · Water-types · Psychic-types · Steel-types · Poison-types · Fire-types · Flying-types · Grass-types · Dark-types · Dragon-types
Pokédex body colours (10)
Taken from the official Pokédex colour field, which does not always match what you see. Several Pokémon are filed under a colour that covers only part of their body — this is a reliable source of surprise.
appears in 68 groups
appears in 56 groupsAlso in this group: Red Pokémon · Green Pokémon · Brown Pokémon · Gray Pokémon · White Pokémon · Yellow Pokémon · Purple Pokémon · Blue Pokémon
Generations (9)
Debut generation, I through IX. These reward Pokédex knowledge rather than pattern spotting, so they tend to sit in the harder tiers.
appears in 64 groups
appears in 55 groupsAlso in this group: Generation III · Generation V · Generation VI · Generation IX · Generation VII · Generation I · Generation IV
Pokédex categories (6)
The species label printed in the Pokédex — the "Mouse Pokémon", the "Mushroom Pokémon". Often the most satisfying group to spot, because it connects Pokémon that share nothing else.
appears in 84 groups
appears in 76 groupsAlso in this group: Mouse Pokémon · Mushroom Pokémon · Dragon Pokémon · Paradox Pokémon
Legendary and Mythical
Two status-based categories. They look easy until you notice how many Legendaries can also be grouped by type or colour.
appears in 93 groups
appears in 61 groupsFrequently asked questions
Is there a new puzzle every day?
Yes. A new Daily puzzle unlocks at midnight UTC and is the same for everyone. Unlimited mode lets you practise as many extra boards as you like — those never affect your daily record.
Can I lose?
No. You can keep guessing until all four groups are found. Mistakes only add to your attempt count, which is the score you share.
How are the groups decided?
Groups come from real Pokédex data — elemental types, body colour, generation, Pokédex category, and legendary or mythical status. Every board is machine-checked so no Pokémon fits two groups at once.
What does the purple group mean?
Difficulty runs yellow, green, blue, purple. The purple group is the trickiest, and boards are scored so the most deceptive overlaps land there.
Is this official?
No. poconnections is a fan-made project with no affiliation to Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, Game Freak, or The New York Times.
Do I need an account?
No. Your progress is kept in an anonymous cookie tied to this browser, so you can close the tab and come back to a puzzle in progress.