What is Spelling Bee Buddy?
Spelling Bee Buddy is a new interactive tool for Spelling Bee players that provides real-time personalized hints and analysis based on your progress throughout the day.
Its hints are specific to your play that day. For example, if you’ve found most of the words that begin with “C,” it may suggest you start focusing on words that start with “D.” Or it may help you think of words that share similar word stems, prefixes or suffixes.
It has a live grid — a visual element that should be familiar to frequent Spelling Bee players — that shows all of your remaining words by letter and length. It also shows the percentage of readers who have found each word (without spoilers) so that you can compare the words you’ve found with those of other players, possibly helping you think of a common word you overlooked or celebrate a word that few others have found.
Finally, the tool incorporates selected clues from Spelling Bee Forum commenters, building on a community-created tradition to help players find those last few words.
How do I use it?
Play Spelling Bee, then visit Spelling Bee Buddy throughout the day to get its latest hints.
Among our test users, we’ve noticed some people enjoy having Spelling Bee Buddy open in another tab on their device, and switching between the game and the buddy as needed. Some prefer to keep Spelling Bee Buddy open in a different window or device, so that it’s always visible.
Are there spoilers?
Spelling Bee Buddy will never reveal words you haven’t found. Players are sure to have different preferences for if and when they may want hints, but Spelling Bee Buddy is designed to show you only the hints you want. The hints on the page are generally arranged from least specific at the top to most specific at the bottom, so you can stop scrolling once you’ve found what you want. You must click to see the most specific hints, like a reader clue for a given word.
Why did you make it?
We saw that players enjoyed (and enjoyed arguing with!) WordleBot, and found that having an interactive companion helped them learn and think more deeply about their play. In the same spirit, we’re excited to bring this tool to Spelling Bee fans. For less experienced Spelling Bee players, the tool is also designed to help you apply the advice from our Spelling Bee Tips and Tricks article in real time for each day’s puzzle, although it can be helpful to players at all levels.
How and when do you choose reader clues each day? Can I participate?
We will choose clues from among the comments posted in the Forum at about 8 a.m. Eastern each day, and publish them around 9 a.m. Eastern. For each word in the puzzle, we will select one commenter’s clue, crediting that person and linking back to the original comment. If you are interested in submitting clues for consideration, you’re welcome to submit them in that day’s Forum comments. (If you’re new to clue writing, you can use this format to get started.)
Does this change anything about Spelling Bee or Spelling Bee Forum?
No. Spelling Bee Buddy is a new and optional experience for players who are interested, and it doesn’t change anything about Spelling Bee or Spelling Bee Forum. For example, while we’re including selected reader clues from commenters, commenting will continue as it does now in the Forum. Anyone can submit and read comments, and can include hints in their comments.
Spelling Bee Buddy was created by Neil Berg, Matthew Conlen, Josh Katz, Aaron Krolik, Eve Washington and Eden Weingart.
The Upshot Staff
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