Skip to content

A solver written in Ruby for NY Times's Spelling Bee puzzle

Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

tatwell/buzzkill

Folders and files

NameName
Last commit message
Last commit date

Latest commit

 

History

11 Commits
 
 
 
 
 
 

Repository files navigation

BuzzKill

Spelling Bee is a daily puzzle from the New York Times. The digital version can be found online here:

https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/spelling-bee

I was lured into it during the pandemic by the daily tweets on the official New York Times Twitter account. Apparently, I'm not alone and there is a thriving community of daily puzzle solvers:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/crosswords/spellingbee-puzzles.html

This script programmatically searches out words based on the rules of the puzzle.

Spoiler Alert

As the article above notes, there a number of solvers available online. I wrote this script for the same reason I play the puzzle: to exercise my mind. I only use it after I've reached genius level and want to see what I've missed or reach the Queen Bee.

It's also worth noting that the New York Times uses its own proprietary word list. So this script will generally find words not recognized by the Times and usually seems to mess one or two this it does count.

Usage

$ cd buzzkill
$ ruby ruby/buzzkill.rb RWYKACT

Solving for RWYKACT [requires: R]
Using word file: ruby/../wordlists/english-109583.txt
TESTING...
Tests passed!

Solving for RWYKACT [requires: R]
Using word file: ruby/../wordlists/english-109583.txt
{"A"=>"(6) ARRACK  ARRAY  ARTY  ATTAR  ATTRACT  AWRY",
 "C"=>
  "(9) CARAT  CARAWAY  CARRY  CART  CARTWAY  CATARACT  CRACK  CRACKY  CRAW",
 "K"=>"(2) KARAT  KART",
 "R"=>"(6) RACK  RACY  RARA  RATA  RATATAT  RATTY",
 "T"=>"(8) TARRY  TART  TARTAR  TATAR  TRACK  TRACKWAY  TRACT  TRAY",
 "W"=>"(5) WARK  WART  WARTY  WARY  WRACK",
 "PANGRAMS"=>"(1) TRACKWAY"}
{:pangrams=>1, :count=>36, :max_score=>148}

About

A solver written in Ruby for NY Times's Spelling Bee puzzle

Resources

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases

No releases published

Packages

No packages published

Languages