At 3 a.m., this would be an annoyance to most people, but Ms. Koker reaches for her cellphone and eagerly taps an icon on the screen. The daily Spelling Bee game has just been published online and, while the rest of her family is slumbering peacefully, she can solve the beehive-shaped puzzle without interruption. The print version debuted in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, and the online game launched on May 9, 2018. As is the case on most days, she has reached Queen Bee, an Easter egg level that is not part of the regular scoring of the game, which starts at Beginner and ends officially at Genius. Reaching Queen Bee meant that she had surpassed the Genius level and found all of the words on that day’s list.

Source: New York Times October 16, 2020 17:15 UTC