I started playing this about a week ago and have been having a great time.
It’s kind of like a word search that can go in any direction after every letter, but can’t overlap, and you don’t know the words. There’s also a special word (sometimes 2 words together) called “spangram” each day that will go from one side of the board to the other and spell out the theme of the other words.
Strands has been my favorite NYT game since shortly after it became available. On most days enjoyable, and rarely has the level of nonsense categories as Connections does.