I have a certain daily routine that I follow for the most part when I get up each day. There's breakfast to be made and eaten and washing-up afterward, and all of the other odd household chores that nag at me for my attention. But when they're done and I have some time to myself, I sit down with my laptop and open
Wordle; after
Wordle come
Spelling Bee, Digits, and finally
Connections. These games are all found under the Games section of
The New York Times, for which I have a digital subscription. I have become a devotee of these games and look forward to new ones each day.
Wordle is an online word game in which players are given six attempts to guess a five-letter word. Everyone has heard about
Wordle; Josh Wardle, who created it for his partner, sold it to
The New York Times for a low-seven figure sum. There are
Wordle chat forums and AI chatbots that will analyze your moves for you after you have finished.
Spelling Bee is a word puzzle game that challenges players to form words using a set of seven letters; these letters are arranged in a honeycomb with the center letter highlighted in yellow. The center letter must be used in all words formed and all words must be four letters or more. The game offers Hints to players, informing them of how many total words there are for that day, how many pangrams, and what the first letters are for the words in question. It would be a much more difficult game without the Hints, but of course that's the challenge. Even with the Hints, it can be a tough nut to crack. So there is something about reaching the rank of 'Genius' in
Spelling Bee that floats my boat, likewise for
Digits, a daily math puzzle game where you can use any combination of numbers to reach the target number. There are five daily target numbers to reach. It's fun and challenging and not as easy as one might think. And finally there is the game
Connections (currently in beta form); it presents players with sixteen words that have to be grouped into four groups according to similarity/commonality, e.g. names of colleges or types of vegetables.
I've learned that the best thing to do when I get stuck at any point is to take a break and come back after an hour or so. For some reason that always helps. Apparently there are millions of people each day who play these games and I understand why. They're fun, and they draw on one's vocabulary and/or ability to be brain-flexible. Sometimes I find myself really 'reaching' to come up with words in Spelling Bee or Wordle, but that's the fun part--meeting the challenge.
