Looking for answers to today's Connections? The Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 2.5 out of 5.

We update our Connections hints and tips 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 a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle 498.

There are spoilers for connection #499. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read on.

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:

These hints should at least give you an idea of how to find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you just want the answer, scroll down further.

There is a bigger clue. In today's puzzle, we play games, look to the universe, and plan for luxury items.

Now, what's the answer to today's game #499, Connections?

Drum roll please.

As I think I've mentioned before, it's always satisfying to go down the line from yellow to purple or vice versa. Today we go from easy to hard.

To start things off, the yellow category labeled “brand name” was looking for designer, haute, high-end, luxury. I think that is the wrong title, but the grouping makes sense together.

From there, looking at the engineer and the hatch, we put together the green; Concoct and mastermind grabbed it right from there.

We remembered Viking, Voyager, and Pioneer, but had completely forgotten Galileo, NASA's launch to study Jupiter and its moons.

Purple and blue were like two sides of the same coin, but I was going with that line.

So I was surprised that purple was the game and not the spaceship. Still, Bingo, Marco Polo, tag, and Uno are all games that you play while saying their names.

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 1.8 out of 5.

Alizée must have been hungry, because she solved the yellow category with Kidney, Mung, Navy, and Pinto. In other words, the pressure was on, with only the more difficult categories left.

Next, the green category caught her eye with Draw, Grab, Hook, and Pull. Blue was even easier, with a hint of standard gear shifts: drive, low, neutral, reverse. Yes, PRINDL.

Even the purple category wasn't that difficult, but that may be because she finally watched Deadpool & Wolverine over the weekend. It's a bit of wordplay that each ends in a pool: Car, Dead, Liver, Whirl.