Strands is a daily online word game from The New York Times, released into beta on March 4, 2024, and originally pitched by research director Juliette Seive. Unlike a traditional word search, players find words in a 6x8 grid where words can bend in any direction, guided by a daily theme and a special "spangram" that spans the grid and describes the theme itself. The game, edited by Tracy Bennett (who also edits Wordle), offers hints after finding three non-theme words, and every letter in the grid is used exactly once. Critics like Ian Bogost of The Atlantic praised Strands for its novel take on the familiar word-search format, noting it makes players "feel smarter than they really are." However, Eric Switzer of The Gamer enjoyed the game but lamented that some puzzles are "rage-inducing" in their difficulty.