Today’s NYT Strands hints are easy if you’re an animal lover.

Strands, the New York Times‘ elevated word-search game, requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There’s always a theme linking every solution, along with the “spangram,” a special, word or phrase that sums up that day’s theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.

If you’re feeling stuck or just don’t have 10 or more minutes to figure out today’s puzzle, we’ve got all the NYT Strands hints for today’s puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.

NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Pouch perfect

The words are related to animals.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

These words describe pouch-bearing animals.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today’s NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today’s spangram is Marsupials.

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NYT Strands word list for April 5

• Wombat

• Koala

• Bilby

• Marsupials

• Opossum

• Kangaroo

• Wallaby

Looking for other daily online games? Mashable’s Games page has more hints, and if you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now!

Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Strands.

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.

There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.

An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.

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If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.

Hurdle Word 1 hint

A spigot.

Hurdle Word 1 answer

SPOUT

Hurdle Word 2 hint

A leg exercise.

Hurdle Word 2 Answer

LUNGE

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Hurdle Word 3 hint

Fire.

Hurdle Word 3 answer

FLAME

Hurdle Word 4 hint

To smash into.

Hurdle Word 4 answer

CRASH

Final Hurdle hint

Gleam

Hurdle Word 5 answer

SHINE

If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

By Jennifer Asencio
| Updated 45 seconds ago

The wait is over. After years of anticipation, Backrooms is finally here. The first trailer was dropped on March 31, 2026, and the surreal dimension audiences were introduced to in the amateur web series is finally coming into its own. The A24 production was directed by none other than Kane Pixels himself, Kane Parsons.

When Parsons filmed his masterpiece web series, he was a 17-year-old high school student with an experimental eye behind the camera. The Backrooms (Found Footage) follows a young filmmaker as he wanders into another dimension consisting of a labyrinth of rooms in a yellow-walled institutional setting. His work was noticed by Atomic Monster, the studio of horror great James Wan, director of The Conjuring movies and the Insidious franchise. Parsons still isn’t old enough to pop champagne at his movie’s premiere, but his maturity as a director is sure to excite fans of the web series.

Lost In Labyrinth

In the trailer for Backrooms, Chiwetel Ejiofor, known for playing Baron Mondo in the Doctor Strange movies, stars as Clark, an employee in a furniture showroom who one night finds a strange opening in the store’s basement. He passes through the opening and finds the very same dimension that is Parsons’s trademark, yellow walls and all. As he wanders around a little, strange events happen.

This makes him determined to study this strange alternate universe. He recruits some friends and gathers some camera gear, and the group begins its exploration. However, there is a young lady he speaks to that seems to be either a friend or a therapist, and when she stumbles upon the rooms without Clark’s knowledge, she may never come back.

At least, this is what I have gathered from watching the trailer. The script, written by Parsons and Will Soodik, has been kept under wraps since the movie was first announced. It appears to take place in the past (prior rumors said the 1990s), and IMDb doesn’t have a lot of information beyond the name of Ejiofor’s character and some production credits.

What we have been shown is exciting because it draws upon almost everything fans loved about the web series. It will feature found footage in the form of the explorations of Clark and his friends. The vast office complex that makes up the setting is adorned with surreal imagery like strangely stacked furniture and objects sunken into walls. Some of the characters show up in radiation gear. Somehow, between the yellow walls and the varying sizes of the rooms, passages, and hallways, the titular setting is both massive and claustrophobic at once, making it very unsettling.

A Deeply Unsettling Exploration

The whole movie seems to echo the trajectory of Parsons’s career so far: an eagerness to explore combined with an optimism for what Clark might find, while presenting a frightening and solitary menace for anyone who dares enter alone. Parsons began with that eagerness and is now getting to explore the world of cinema that he entered when he posted the original anthology on YouTube, with all the optimism of a kid who got his first directing contract before he even graduated high school.

If Backrooms maintains the tone set by Kane Pixels, it could draw new fans. If it manages to use the resources offered to Parsons by support from a professional studio, it could turn a teenager’s vision into the hottest new horror franchise. The trailer hints that it at least accomplishes the tone. Now to see if it can exceed expectations.

Get lost in Backrooms, in theaters on May 29, 2026.