Hangman Game FAQ

Hangman is a classic word-guessing game. One player (here, the computer) thinks of a word and shows it as a row of blank spaces, one per letter. The other player guesses letters one at a time. Correct letters are filled in; each wrong letter draws another part of a stick figure hanging from a gallows. Guess the whole word before the drawing is finished and you win.

Pick a category or leave it on "Surprise me", then deal a word. Guess letters by typing them or tapping the on-screen keyboard. A correct letter appears in every spot it belongs; a wrong letter adds a piece to the hangman and uses one of your six tries. Reveal the whole word to win the round and build your streak.

Yes. hangmangame.app is completely free and runs entirely in your browser. There is nothing to buy, download, or install, and there are no interruptive video ads, premium tiers, or paywalls. Open the page and a word is ready to play.

No. The game is the website — a 100% browser-based build with no app-store download and no sign-up. Your stats are saved locally in your browser, so there is no login to manage.

Hangman is a paper-and-pencil game with roots in Victorian Britain; a version appears in Alice Bertha Gomme’s "Traditional Games" of 1894 under the name "Birds, Beasts and Fishes". It spread through classrooms in the twentieth century as a spelling and vocabulary exercise and has been a staple of word-game apps and TV formats — most famously as the inspiration for "Wheel of Fortune" — ever since.

This version has ten categories — Animals, Countries, Food & Drink, Sports, Science, Music, Nature, Around the House, Jobs, and Travel — plus "Surprise me", which draws a word from any of them. Every answer is a single common English word between four and twelve letters.

Six. Each wrong letter adds one part to the figure — head, body, two arms, two legs — and the sixth wrong guess completes the hangman and ends the round. Correct guesses are unlimited and never cost a try.

It is revealed everywhere at once for a single guess. Guessing E in "ELEPHANT" fills both E positions, and it still counts as just one correct guess.

You get two hints per round. A hint reveals one random letter of the word that you have not guessed yet, and it does not count as a wrong guess. Each hint you use lowers the maximum points the round can score, so they are best saved for when you are truly stuck.

A win starts at 60 points, adds 12 for each of your six tries still unused, adds a small bonus for the number of distinct letters in the word, adds a speed bonus that shrinks the longer you take, and subtracts 25 for every hint used. The round score is never lower than 10. A loss scores nothing.

Not in this version — you win a round by revealing every letter through individual guesses. That keeps the scoring consistent and means a lucky whole-word stab never ends a round early or costs you the full set of tries.

A round solved without a single wrong letter. Flawless wins are counted separately in your stats. Using a hint does not break a flawless win, because a hint is not a wrong guess — it only affects the points.

Start with vowels — E, A, I, O — then the most common consonants: T, N, S, R, L, and D. The phrase "ETAOIN SHRDLU" lists English letters roughly in order of frequency, and working down it is a reliable opening. Hold rare letters like J, Q, X and Z until the pattern or the category calls for them.

Lean on the category, clear the common letters before the rare ones, and read the whole revealed pattern rather than one gap. Watch for familiar endings such as -ING, -ION, -ED and -ER. Keep your two hints in reserve for a genuine stall, and do not gamble a try on a letter you only half-expect when you are down to your last one or two.

A lot. The category narrows thousands of possible words to a few dozen and often turns two or three revealed letters into a certain answer. A five-letter word with an "A" in "Countries" is a very different guess from the same blanks in "Sports".

Short words with rare letters and few vowels are the toughest — think "JAZZ", "FIZZ" or "GLYPH" — because there is little pattern to work from and a wrong letter is expensive. Words with repeated uncommon letters and unusual letter pairs also trip people up.

There is no guaranteed win, because the word is hidden, but letter-frequency order plus the category gets you close. Computer solvers narrow the word list by length and category, then always guess the letter that appears in the most remaining candidates — the same idea you apply by hand when you use the pattern and the category together.

Yes. The layout is built for touch: the word and the drawing sit at the top and a full-width A–Z keyboard fills the bottom of the screen, so every key is an easy thumb reach. Dealing a new word is instant with no page reload.

Your games played, games won, win rate, current and longest streak, best score, and fastest solve are saved locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server and there is no account. Because the save lives on the device, a different phone, a new browser profile, or cleared site data looks like a fresh start.

The streak counts consecutive rounds won. Losing a round — six wrong guesses — resets the current streak to zero. Your longest streak is kept separately as a personal best and is never lowered.

Any current browser with JavaScript: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari on desktop, plus their mobile versions. If keys do not respond, update the browser, allow scripts for this site, and reload.

Open Stats from the game bar and use Reset progress, then confirm with the second tap. That clears games played, games won, streaks, best score, and fastest solve on this browser. It cannot be undone.