Hangman

How to play

When a round begins, Hangman picks a word from the category you have chosen and shows it as a row of blank tiles, one tile per letter. Your job is to work out the word by guessing single letters. Tap a letter on the on-screen keyboard, or simply press that key on your physical keyboard, and every matching position in the word is revealed at once. A correct letter costs nothing; a wrong letter costs one of your six lives and adds a new part to the gallows drawing on the left — first the head, then the body, both arms and both legs.

You win the moment every letter in the word has been revealed, and your win count and streak both increase. If you run out of lives the round ends and the full word is shown so you can see what you missed. The New Word button starts a fresh round at any time, and the category menu lets you switch between Animals, Countries, Food, Technology and Sport before or during a round. A correct guess never costs a life, so guess boldly on letters you believe in and save your caution for the risky ones.

Tips and strategy

The single best habit in Hangman is to open with the most common letters in English before anything exotic. E, A, R, I, O, T, N, S and L appear far more often than Q, Z, X, J or V, so spend your first few guesses on the frequent ones. The category is a real clue rather than decoration: if you are playing Countries and have uncovered a trailing pattern, think about which real countries could fit before you guess. Watch for common letter pairings too — after a Q almost always comes a U, and a double S or double E is a common shape to test. Finally, use the Hint button sparingly. It reveals a random unguessed letter but spends one life, so treat it as a rescue for a round you would otherwise lose rather than a shortcut at the start.