I hadn’t looked at this one before - but this sounds like fun. Do you get this for free if you have a NYT subscription?
Yes, it’s free with a NYT subscription.
I’m hooked on it as well. I wrote to them once about a word they didn’t accept and agree that there are a number of common crossword words that Spelling Bee doesn’t accept. I can’t let it go until I hit Amazing and try to go for Genius, but there are some days I just can’t get a good flow going with the letters. I get really frustrated if I can’t figure out the word that uses all the letters. I think it was one day this week I reached Genius level without that 14 point word and I felt like I lost.
I love the crossword puzzle and lately started doing Vertex.
Actually I think you need to pay a little extra to get the complete version. My D has a NYT subscription, but does not have the whole SB.
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You can also just buy a subscription for the puzzles and not the whole paper. That’s what I have.
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My 2 addictions: College Confidential and NYT Spelling Bee. I agree that it is very frustrating when it refuses to take perfectly good words. I too have tried undaunted and alee; also penpal and others I can’t think of at the moment. Of course, I don’t know if any younger people even know what a penpal is (was)! Maybe that’s now considered an archaic word. I usually can get to Genius level and recently have been striving for Queen Bee, though I often need to use the hints to get that far.
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You have to pay for the puzzle subscription. Also it’s pangram, not pentagram. 
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Interesting. I sure don’t remember paying separately for puzzles. I think we have autopay for the NYT so I never really pay attention what I’m paying for. That’s the danger with automatic subscriptions - I’m sure there are some things sneaking thru that we don’t use anymore.
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I am irritated that I pay for the NYT AND puzzles but have to would pay again for a freaking lemon bar recipe.
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Yes, it’s $19.97/year for access to all puzzles (including tiles, letterboxed, crosswords, etc., & of course the full version of spelling bee). I just renewed so pretty sure that’s the price. I remembered that “poopy” is another word it always refuses to take which any parent will attest is a perfectly good word. And yoyo, though I know that is actually yo-yo. Always annoys me though.
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Hmm- shows up as 40$ per year for me - just for the games subscription. How/where did you get the 20$ per year?
Might have to ask H to get this for me as my xmas gift !
That’s what my dh gave me last year.
We pay 20 as an add-on. Maybe it’s more as a stand alone?
I did the spelling bee for a while, but I got incredibly irritated by the arbitrariness of what words counted and what didn’t. I also don’t like games where it gets harder and harder to complete. I do the NYT crossword every day and the acrostic, both of which tend to fall into place when you finally get them about 3/4 figured out. I also really like the Friday, Wall Street Journal puzzle which has an extra meta puzzle built in. My husband I only get the meta-puzzle about a quarter of the time.
Might be as an add-on? I use my dad’s digital subscription as he reads the actual paper paper, so maybe they count me as a subscriber even though I’m not the one who pays for it? Anyway it was definitely $19.97 - as much as I like it not sure I’d pay $40 though I might!!
We have a subscription that includes an actual paper and the games come with it.
I just started Spelling Bee a few weeks ago and now do it almost every day. I have definitely learned some new words. It can be frustrating. I can usually get to genius using the grid in the hints, but almost always need the hints from the community comments to get to Queen Bee (or QB minus 1 or 2) to find the weird words I would never get. Of course at times the hints bring me to words I definitely missed. I am also somewhat impatient and time-limited so turn to the hints to speed things up. Checking the hints in the comments really helps improve your game, as the words tend to repeat.
I have not done letter box. Will check it out. I have started doing some of the crosswords online as well.
Never noticed this before, but just started it today. So…newbie question…I don’t really understand what the grid (in the help section) is offering…is that the number of words (across the x axis) that start with the letter along the y axis? What is the sigma representing?).
That’s right.
I didn’t actually know about that grid or the starting letters under it till recently. I try not to use them. I definitely don’t want to read comment hints.
We do use the other “Spelling Bee Answers” site which is unaffiliated to look for how many words of each number, but that’s it for hints. That’s also where we have always found QB totals. I honestly never even looked at the hint link on the game itself till about two weeks ago–never really noticed it.
Sigma is the total for each letter and then for overall.
I find the two letter hints very helpful when I get close to the end. Can focus on the missing letter combos.
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Impressed that you don’t use the hints! Do you make it to QB every time you do the puzzle?
Once you are done, you may want to check out the comments. Some of the hints are quite clever and some of the comments fun (others get a bit snarky about words that are not in the Bee but should be).