Categlorious

Categlorious fits on nine tiles and a single sly idea. There are four categories to discover, three words each, except that only one word actually belongs to all four at once. The game calls it the connector, and that is the target: the word with a double, triple, quadruple sense is not a trap to avoid but the key to the whole grid. Each category therefore reduces to the connector plus two other words, which turns the problem into a matching game rather than sorting into four piles.

1. Read all nine words before touching anything and look for the one that recurs across several conceivable themes: that's the connector.
2. Select it first if you're sure: the game awards an Eagle eye bonus for a first selection that hits it.
3. Form a group of three tiles, then confirm with Submit. Deselect clears the selection, Shuffle reshuffles the layout.
4. Complete the four categories in succession; the counter at the top of the grid shows how many have been found out of four.

Ambiguity is usually what a sorting game punishes you for misreading. Categlorious puts it at the center and makes it win: the word that seems to belong everywhere does in fact belong everywhere, and finding it first pays off. The reversal completely changes the way you look at a grid, and is enough to occupy nine tiles where others require sixteen.

Selected tiles darken at once, the grid keeps its counter of categories found out of four at the top, and the four Mistakes dots are lined up just under the tiles. A timer runs in the bar, with a pause button next to it. The game gives feedback on a category you narrowly missed, expressed to within one tile: because the connector appears in all four categories, it can never be the incorrect word, and that feedback therefore must refer to one of the other two.

Daily grid

A nine-word grid per day, with the date shown in the game's bar and a date selector next to it.

• Look for the word that has the most uses. Run through the nine and ask yourself which one changes meaning depending on the sentence you put it in: that's the only reliable clue to identify the connector.
• Once you have the connector, eight words remain to be sorted into four pairs, not four groups of three. The problem is noticeably smaller than it appears at first glance.
• Don't click at random to feel things out: the very first tile you touch is scored separately.