Hangman is one of the most popular games in the world, easy to play, easy to learn and very enjoyable.
Hangman Players
Hangman is a two player game however more than two players can play in a team scenario.
Requirements
All you need is a Pen & Paper and your enthusiasm!
Hangman Instructions
Two players alternate between being the person who thinks of the word and the person who guesses the word.
One player (Player 1) takes charge of the paper and pen and needs to think of a word for the other player (Player 2) to guess. It can be any word at all, adjective, noun, adverb, verb etc.
Player 1 then writes down dashes at the bottom of the page, one dash representing each letter of the word Player 1 has chosen for Player 2 to guess.
Player 1 then needs to draw a gallows typically represented by two horizontal lines and a vertical line on the left hand side connecting the two horizontal lines, as well as a small diagonal line on the top left hand side.
Player 2 can now begin guessing letters to ultimately guess the word Player 1 has chosen. Typically vowels ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘I’, ‘o’ and ‘u’ are first to be guessed to maximize the chances of guessing a letter that will be in the word. The next most popular letters include ‘t’, ‘n’, ‘s’, ‘h’, ‘r’, ‘d’ and ‘l’. Of course, which letters to guess will also depend on the word at hand and the letter placement of the letters guessed so far.
For every letter Player 2 guesses that is within the word Player 1 has chosen, Player 1 will write the letter on the dash corresponding to where it is located on the word. For every letter Player 2 guesses that is not within the word Player 1 has chosen, Player 1 must draw a body part of the stick figure on the gallows. The choice of how many body parts to include in the game should be decided between players before the game. Whether to have both arms as one body part or whether they should be separate, whether to include facial features such as eyes, ears, nose, mouth etc. is up to the players discretion. This will ultimately influence the difficulty of the game in terms of more body parts equals more chances for Player 2 to guess the word, thus the easier the game. Less body parts increases the difficulty of the game as it gives Player 2 less opportunities to guess letters and ultimately determine the word.
If Player 2 is able to guess the word before all body parts are drawn on the gallows, then they WIN. If Player 2 has exhausted all guesses with the fact that all body parts have been drawn represented by a hangman, then Player 2 has lost.
Player 1 and Player 2 should take it in turns to be the person who thinks of the word and the guesser.
Fun Fact: Hangman inspired the popular game show Wheel of Fortune