Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #471 from September 24, a little easier than yesterday's answer, this puzzle from Connections Companion has a difficulty level of 3 out of 5

We update our Connections clues and hints daily If the hints are not enough for you, we have also included the solutions to all four puzzles, the category names, and the related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #470

There are spoilers for Connection 471 Please only read this if you want to know the solution to today's Connections

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

While today's wordle solving 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 help you 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 the answer, scroll down further

A bigger tip is to ignore your Instagram feed and party decorations before finding something new and booking entertainment

Now for the answer to today's game #471 Connection

Drum roll please

I have one question

When I saw balloons, banners, confetti, and garland, I started with the blue category When I saw the streamers on the garland, I was hit by an early strike That strike gave me pause, but the other three didn't fit anywhere else, so I went back and replaced them with garlands

Streamers led me to the purple category, which added influencers, models, and ambassadors Despite the existence of the “brand ambassador” combo, I object to including ambassadors in this list because they are functionally the same word as influencers and not online personalities in the same way Models and streamers who can be influencers are at least different To put it in a tricky way, I would choose something that could reasonably be placed elsewhere, like a poster or a host

From there, I saw green categories for book, charter, reserve, and secure This is the simplest one so far

Yellow was my last category Creative, fresh, innovative, and original made sense I saw these words, but I don't know why I didn't connect them to the end here Inspired, surely

I'm reading this late in the day According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 33 out of 5

Alizée was the first to complete the yellow category today However, unlike the clues in the remaining categories, today's yellow answers (Bumpy, Rough, Rugged, Uneven) were very easy

She stumbled repeatedly as the remaining categories were packed with words that each had at least two meanings Next came the greens for Bed, Parcel, Patch, and Plot, at which point she had already struck out once trying to connect Rocky and Scratchy to Patch

The next category was purple Parallel was an obvious outlier for her, and Alyce worked backwards from there, realizing that South, along with Amusement and National, all dealt with park types

The last was the blue category with Chip, Rocky, Scratchy, and Stitch She wasn't a fan of “The Simpsons,” so she knew about everything but Scratchy