Link Four guide
A guide to Link Four on OverTime: the grid and controls, a safe first group, spotting red herrings, and how mistakes shape your score.
How to play Link Four
- 4 groups of 4
- 4 mistakes allowed
- New puzzle daily
Goal
Sort sixteen words into the four groups of four they belong to.
- Easiest group
- Second easiest
- Second hardest
- Hardest group
Making a group
- Select exactly four words you think share a connection, then submit them.
- A correct group locks in and its shared category is revealed.
- A wrong group costs you one of four mistakes. Use all four and the puzzle ends.
- Guess three of four correctly and you are told you were one away, without being told which word is wrong.
Why it is harder than it looks
Several words will fit more than one category on purpose. The grid is built so that the obvious grouping is usually the trap, and the intended connection is often a wordplay link - homophones, words that precede a common term, or a single hidden category - rather than a topic.
Tactics
- Start with the group you are most certain of, so a wrong guess costs you the least information.
- If a word fits two categories, solve the other three groups first and let it fall out by elimination.
- One puzzle per day, the same one for every player, resetting at midnight Melbourne time.
Before your first grid
Link Four lays out sixteen word cards in four columns. A clock runs at the top right, and a row of four dots shows the mistakes you have left.
Tap or click a card to select it, and again to let it go. Under the grid sit Shuffle, Deselect All and Submit, which wakes up once four cards are chosen.
On a keyboard, the arrow keys move between cards and Space or Enter selects the one in focus. With four chosen, the same key submits them. S shuffles and D clears your picks.
On a phone the grid keeps its four columns. Long words shrink their lettering so every card stays the same size.
A sound way to start
Read all sixteen words before you touch one. Say each group you notice out loud, then count how many words could belong to it.
A group with five or six candidates is a trap waiting to happen. A group with exactly four candidates, and no other home for any of them, is your safest first submission.
Shuffle when the layout starts to suggest false pairs. Seeing the same words in new positions often breaks an assumption you did not know you had made.
Reading the grid as it shrinks
Every word belongs to exactly one group. Each solved group therefore removes four words from contention and makes the rest easier to read.
The difficulty colours run from yellow, the most direct link, through green and blue to purple. Purple sets lean on wordplay, such as hidden words, homophones or words that can precede a common term.
When the game says one away, three of your four words share a group. Swap out the word you were least sure of, and keep the other three together.
If two groups seem to fight over a word, leave it alone. Solve the groups around it, and the last few cards usually settle the argument for you.
Mistakes that cost games
Four wrong groups end the puzzle, so each mistake matters. These are the most common ways players lose them.
- Submitting the first theme you spot. The obvious grouping is often built to catch you, with a fifth word that also fits.
- Changing two words after one away. Change one at a time so each guess tells you something.
- Guessing purple early. The wordplay group is easiest to see once the other twelve words are gone.
- Expecting a reload to help. The server keeps your mistake count, so refreshing the page gives nothing back.
Points, streaks and leaderboards on OverTime
A perfect solve scores 400 points. Each mistake costs 100, so a solve with three mistakes scores 100 and a fourth mistake scores nothing.
Sending the same four words twice costs nothing. The game tells you that you have already tried them and leaves your dots alone.
A win on consecutive days grows your streak, and a loss or a missed day resets it. Your progress is saved as you play, so you can leave and come back.
The leaderboards rank your best score for today, this week, this month, this season and all time, with a Streak board alongside. Ties go to whoever got there first.
Where to go next
Link Four has no Unlimited mode, so each day brings one grid. After you finish, the results show your completed board for a last look at the links.
If you enjoy thinking about meaning, try Word Proximity. It ranks every guess by how close it sits to a secret word. For a group setting, Spy Words is a team word game for four to eight players.