Hangman

In a game of Hangman, one player (The Setter) thinks of a word or phrase and makes dash marks on a piece of paper to indicate the letters in that word or phrase. The other players (The Guessers) then guess letters that might be in the answer. If a letter is guessed correctly, the Setter writes the letter above the dash for each occurrence of that letter. If the guessed letter is not in the final answer, the Setter draws one piece of a stick figure. At any time, the Guessers can guess the answer and win the game. If the stick figure drawing is completed before the answer is guessed, then the Guessers are out of turns and lose the game.

Example Hangman game showing 3 letters guessed correctly, and 4 guessed incorrectly.

Rule Variations

There are many subtle variations of the rules that players may choose to use.

• Incorrectly guessing the complete word, may or may not incur a penalty mark.
• The number of turns allowed can be varied by changing the detail of the stick figure. To allow 6 incorrect guesses, draw only [head, body, arm, arm, leg, leg]. To allow 8 or 10 guesses you could also draw the hands and/or feet. Add eyes, nose and mouth for even more guesses.
• If drawing a hangman is a little to morbid for your taste, a common alternative is to draw an apple tree with apples on it. For each incorrect guess, you cross off an apple.
• To make the game harder, you can limit the number of vowels that are allowed to be guessed.
• You could give the definition of the word, either up front or after a certain number of incorrect guesses.
• The Setter can provide a hint if requested, which may or may not incur a penalty mark.
• Incorrectly guessed letters may or may not be written down on the side as a reminder of what was already guessed. If a letter is guessed twice, you may choose to ignore the duplicate guess or incur a penalty mark.

Strategy

Some letters of the alphabet are more commonly used than other letters, so you can increase your chances of finding a letter at the beginning of the game by guessing common letters. The most common 12 letters used in English, are (in order): ETAOINSHRDLU.

Every word has a vowel, so guessing the 5 vowels until you find enough, is a good place to start.

Beyond that, having a good vocabulary and being able to recognize common prefixes and suffixes (like pre- or -ing) will help you guess the word. If you want to improve your vocabulary, Braingle has a section for improving your vocabulary.

If you are the Setter, your strategy could be select words that avoid using the most common letters of the alphabet (for example: Jazzy). This will make it harder for the Guessers.

Other Ways To Play

This game originated as a paper and pencil game, but there are ways to play electronically. Braingle has it's own version of this game, that you can play by yourself right now.