It’s that time of year again where the current series of Only Connect draws to a close. For the uninitiated, Only Connect is a quiz show on the BBC. It has four rounds:
- Connections – Figure out the connection from four apparently random clues
- Sequences – Determine what would come fourth in a sequence
- Connecting Wall – Sort 16 clues into four connected groups of four, and find what connects them
- Missing Vowels – Determine the word or phrase which has had its vowels removed and spaces added or subtracted. These come in connected groups of four, where the connection is given.
It is generally considered to be very difficult. The questions often rely on esoteric trivia, but rarely do they solely rely on such trivia. For many of the questions the answer can be figured out in the moment, based on limited knowledge or partial identification; educated guessing is perhaps the most valuable skill of the Only Connect player.
There is no cash on offer for winning Only Connect; the only prizes for winning are bragging rights, the chance to appear on another episode, and a trophy (an upgrade from earlier series which offered a three-way share in a trophy). You really only participate in Only Connect for the love of the game.
The show embraces its reputation for being deliberately obscure. In the first few series, contestants had to choose from questions labelled with Greek letters. After complaints that this was “pretentious” and “elitist”, Only Connect doubled down and changed the labels to Egyptian hieroglyphs as a joke. But also for real, as the hieroglyphs remain to this day.
Puzzle Hunter and LiveCoder
What has all this got to do with LiveCode? Well, the answer is not much, other than the fact that the winning team of series 16 of Only Connect, Puzzle Hunters, included me. (In an effort to make more of a connection, I’ve added a little LiveCode app I created for you to try your skill with to the end of this article.) Puzzle Hunters success, as many successes are, was a heady mix of perseverence, skill, and (importantly) luck. We applied to go on the programme repeatedly – in series 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12 and 15 before finally getting through. On two of those occasions (5 and 12) we got through the on-paper test but fell at the filmed audition stage.
Luck vs Skill
The role of luck in a team’s progression through Only Connect should not be underestimated. For example, in the first two sections of the quiz there are 5 points on offer for answering with only one clue visible. For some questions this is effectively a token offering – it might be a single word or number and there would be no way of knowing where the question is going. Other questions are eminently gettable at this early stage if you happen to have the insight. Also because these rounds consist of 6 unique questions each, with the teams alternating, it might be that through chance you pick the 3 you know nothing about and the other team picks the 3 you know a lot about. Even if the opposing team does not score highly on their questions, you have been deprived of the chance to score highly on them. Similarly, in round three each team does one of two connecting walls, and while the question setters do an exceptionally good job of matching their difficulty, it’s not an exact science. The tournament structure’s first and second round repechage system is both acknowledgement and mitigation of this fact; you get a second chance if you lose either of your first two games.
None of this is intended as criticism – in fact it is part of the magic of Only Connect. Arguably it increases the enjoyment of those viewing at home- you get to tot up your potential score as if you had a clear shot at every question on the show; you get to warm up on one connecting wall and then look at the second with the knowledge that the connection types will be similar (for example if there is an anagram connection on one wall it’s very likely there will be one on both). And while this element of luck is fairly prominent, you still have to have the skill to take your opportunities when you are given them.
Its a bit of cult…
Only Connect has a pretty decent number of weekly viewers in the UK (around 2 million), but it is a cult favourite and has a hardcore following elsewhere in the world. People that like it tend to really love it. It frequently pops up as a subject in USA-centric puzzle hunts; journalist Benjamin Benoit plays along in French with a hundred-odd Only Connect fans on his Twitch stream; and several hundred people from the UK and USA compete weekly in the the Connections Online Quiz League, which mirrors the Only Connect format and has dedicated teams of question writers and presenters.
Strigiformes vs Crustaceans
On Monday night, the series 18 final will take place between Strigiformes and Crustaceans. I’m not a betting man, but I’m happy to lay down in eternal print my prediction that Crustaceans will win; that I am confident of this is not a slight against Strigiformes, but a reflection of Crustaceans’ incredible ability – for me they are one of the strongest teams in recent memory, up there with series 14’s Dicers. On the other hand, the best practice for Only Connect is Only Connect, and perhaps Strigiformes tougher route to the final will give them a battle-hardened edge.
It is a strange experience in the studio on finals day (even stranger than if you happen to walk in on the first day of filming and see that you are facing a team 2/3rds of whom are celebrities, as we did) – the two halves of the draw are kept pretty separate, so whilst you keep seeing teams from your half of the draw around (in the green room, in the hotel bar etc), this is the first time you see your opponents. For all you know, they could have won every single game by a ten point margin. Having said that, in our series the filming schedule was affected by Covid 19 to the extent that a few episodes had already been broadcast when the final was filmed, so that the Dungeon Masters were unfortunate enough to have already seen us in action in a game where we happened to score quite highly.
What does it all look like?
One of the most fun things about the final is seeing the connecting walls and missing vowels categories, as they are always particularly unapproachable in one way or another. In the past the walls have had
- a large number of red herrings
- many very similar looking words
- all numbers
- all three letter acronyms
- all two letter abbreviations
- (almost) all colours or colour-related words
In our final the scores were level after each of the first three rounds, making for a particularly tense final missing vowels round – probably a lot more fun as a viewer than as a participant! I look forward to seeing what the question setting team have come up with, and good luck to both teams.
Addendum: some Only Connect-style questions
I had some Only Connect style questions lying around from various other things, so thought I would write a little LiveCode app so that you could have a go.
Connections
In the first four questions, identify the connection between these apparently random clues. 5 points if you get it on the first clue, 3 points on the second, 2 on the third and 1 on the fourth.
Sequences
In the next four questions, identify what would come fourth in the sequence. 5 points if you get it on the first clue, 3 points on the second, and 2 points on the third.
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