You think you're addicted to Spelling Bee?
March 19, 2022 7:27 AM   Subscribe

You think you're addicted to Spelling Bee?
Here's my NYT Spelling Bee inspired game, Spellbound. Besides coding it up, I created all the word lists. Compared to the NYT, there is more food and plants, fewer chemicals and fish, and no words that would embarrass anyone playing with their children. Free, no ads, no shared data, just for fun. And you don't need a subscription to the NYT to play it.
Role: Programmer, Word List Editor, Designer (solo project)
posted by AMyNameIs (11 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite

This is delightful, although the fact that "FLOOF" is not in your dictionary made my internet-broken brain chuckle.
posted by phildini at 11:51 AM on March 19, 2022 [6 favorites]


Thanks for the compliment and for playing.

Glad you got a chuckle out of the missing floof. It’s an internet slang word, and I’m keeping those to a minimum after having to explain noob to more than one person.

Enjoy.
posted by AMyNameIs at 2:47 PM on March 19, 2022


I'm playing in Chrome on a Win11 laptop, and I don't seem to be able to enter any words. The onscreen buttons don't do anything when I click them, and neither does clicking enter after I type a word in.

Words okay on my phone, though.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:50 PM on March 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


So much for “write once, run anywhere”. I only have a few devices, and a win11 laptop isn’t one of them, so I can’t check it out.

You can use the keyboard for the 3 action buttons: delete key for delete, space for shuffle, and return for enter. Still, you can never get to the next game or do any anything else from the menu, so that’s not such a big help.

Glad you can play on your phone, though.
posted by AMyNameIs at 4:49 PM on March 19, 2022


Thanks for creating & sharing. I do these puzzles in newspapers when I find them on e.g. train seats and I have a pencil behind my ear. I aim to get to a "good" wordcount because beyond that ("excellent" . . . "lexicogenius") I've no idea what words the compiler will have in their list; and the view out of the window competes for my attention. Spellbound gives instant judgment.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:30 AM on March 21, 2022


Glad you are enjoying it, BobTheScientist.

It’s a good game for the train. Play a little; stare out the window a little; go back. No rush, no timers, no pressure.
posted by AMyNameIs at 6:16 PM on March 22, 2022


Thanks for sharing this. I'm enjoying it a lot! I like the fun animations along the way. I even "cheated" once to see all of them - lol.

(Working great on Android phone Firefox and win11 Firefox)
posted by sarah_pdx at 8:28 AM on May 22, 2022


Sarah_pdx, I just saw this comment. Thanks for letting me know you are having fun with the game. I get a kick out of knowing that people all over are playing.

I wanted to give a "reward" for something other than getting the full list so I put the animations in at several spots.

Not cheating; just learning, right?

I appreciate the information about Firefox on Android and win11.
posted by AMyNameIs at 8:51 AM on June 1, 2022


Hello! It's been over a year, I found this via your answer to an AskMe.

Just adding in that the game didn't let me enter works in Firefox or Chrome for Windows 11 - the keyboard lets me type words but pressing the Enter key does nothing. But it works on Google Chrome for Android!
posted by creatrixtiara at 10:55 PM on September 23, 2023


DAMMIT. I played this game a lot and never won because I thought letters had to be adjacent.

JESUS THE GAMES I LOST THE TIME I WASTED

Also: thank you, because it was really challenging and absorbing and I love it!
posted by wenestvedt at 11:41 AM on December 7, 2023


Just saw this through the free thread on MeFi. I love the idea, but it doesn't work for me on Chrome on my Windows 10 machine. I can enter letters, but can't submit guesses with Enter, and I can't delete, either.

No luck on the new version of Edge, either.
posted by yellowcandy at 12:45 PM on January 29


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