Connectrade
Group traded products into sets of four.
Connectrade is a daily grouping puzzle from the Observatory of Economic Complexity. You are given a grid of export products and have to sort them into the countries that lead in shipping them. It takes the familiar Connections mechanic and rebuilds it around real international-trade data.
What is Connectrade?
The core of Connectrade is a grid of export products: things like cars, refined copper, or fish oil. Each country in the puzzle is defined by its top four exports, and your job is to figure out which four tiles belong together. You pick four products, press Submit, and the game tells you whether they form one country's leading exports. You keep forming groups until every product on the board has been assigned to its country. A typical solve runs about two to five minutes.
What sets Connectrade apart from other grouping games is the subject matter. Plain Connections asks you to find categorical links between words, and Tradle, another OEC game, asks you to name a single country from a treemap of its exports. Connectrade fuses those two ideas: the groups are countries and the tiles are actual goods those countries trade. Solving it rewards knowing which nations lead in which products, so it plays as much like a geography and economics quiz as a word puzzle.
Connectrade is made by the OEC, the Observatory of Economic Complexity, and sits in the same collection as Tradle, Export Hold'em, and Pick 5. The trade figures behind the tiles come from the OEC's own export data, which is what gives the puzzle its educational angle. It is free to play, and the daily format means everyone works on the same board on a given day before it resets.
Scoring is built around mistakes rather than a running score. Each wrong submission costs you a life, and you fail the puzzle after six mistakes, so there is real pressure to lock in a group only when you are confident. The vibe is calm and thoughtful: a handful of countries to untangle, but enough real-world trade knowledge involved that a clean, mistake-free solve feels earned.
How to play Connectrade
- Open Connectrade at oec.world to load the day's puzzle.
- Study the grid of export products and think about which countries lead in each good.
- Select four products you believe are one country's top four exports.
- Press Submit to check whether your group of four is correct.
- Keep forming and submitting groups until every product is assigned to a country.
- Watch your mistake count, since six wrong submissions end the puzzle.
Tips and strategy
- Start with the products you recognize as strongly tied to one country, like oil or a signature manufactured good, and build outward from there.
- Lock in your most confident group first so a wrong guess later does not cost you an easy one.
- Remember that the theme is a country's top four exports, not a loose category, so all four tiles must belong to the same nation.
- Think in terms of major exporters: big oil producers, top car makers, and leading raw-material shippers each anchor a likely group.
- Hold off on submitting a group you are unsure about, because you only get six mistakes before the puzzle is lost.
- When two products could fit more than one country, solve the clearer groups first and use elimination on what remains.
Good to know
- Category
- Geography / trade
- Cost
- Free to play
- Resets
- Daily
- Guesses
- Group four products per submission; up to 6 mistakes allowed
- Modes
- Single-player daily puzzle
- Creator
- OEC (Observatory of Economic Complexity)
- Feedback
- Each submission is marked correct or wrong, with a running mistake count
- Platform
- Browser
Connectrade FAQ
Is Connectrade free?
Yes. Connectrade is free to play in a browser at oec.world.
How do you play Connectrade?
You are shown a grid of export products and select four at a time that you think are one country's top four exports. Submit each group of four to check it, and keep going until every product is sorted into its country. Six mistakes ends the puzzle.
When does Connectrade reset?
Connectrade resets daily, so there is a new grid of countries and products to sort each day.
Is Connectrade like Wordle?
It shares the daily one-puzzle-a-day format, but the mechanic is closer to Connections. Instead of guessing a word, you group export products into the countries that lead in trading them.
Who made Connectrade?
Connectrade is made by the OEC, the Observatory of Economic Complexity, alongside its other trade games Tradle, Export Hold'em, and Pick 5.