Show HN: Terminal-based Python port of NY Times' puzzle game “Spelling Bee”

This is really fun, good work Philip!

I haven't seen this puzzle game before, I had to read into it a bit (and had to actually cheat a bit, via solve_puzzles.py.)

Works fine out of the box with python 3, no extra libraries required.

This is good enough to submit to PyPI. Seems like a nice terminal game. Something to play in a tmux pane while tests are running or while waking up with a coffee.

Also I looked at the code, it looks fine.

I saw the multiprocessing in generate_puzzles. Wow. I don't even know what Thread.starmap does. This works nicely.

Keep it up!

OP here. I had been playing the NY Times' Spelling Bee until they required a subscription. Although the cost is modest, I decided it would be a fun exercise to implement for the command line. I'm using Python a lot for data analysis but this puzzle game was a fun way to explore some Python 3 built-in functions: any, all, next. I'm also proud that the code uses only built-in standard Python 3 libraries.

I've listed some ideas if anyone would like to add their thoughts, feedback, bugs - either here as comments, or at the repository issues page[0].

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In this puzzle game, you have to build words using the letters in the hexagonal shape. Each word must be at least 4 letters and include the center letter. Letters can be used more than once. Each puzzle includes one "pangram", which uses all 7 letters at least once.

[0] https://github.com/philshem/open-spelling-bee/issues