If you’re looking for the best way to solve the Hangman or Hanging with Friends puzzles, there are a few options you can choose from. This article explores some expert tips that can help you become a master hangman.
Hangman is a simple but addictive game where you get a number of blank spaces that represent words and you have to guess the letters. If you guess a letter that is not in the word puzzle, a ‘life’ will be deducted – a pitchfork and stick figure are drawn, one piece at a time. If the stick figure drawing is complete before you solve the puzzle, it crashes and you lose. In Hanging with Friends, it takes a somewhat more “pretty” approach where your character (suspended by balloons over a volcano) finally falls into hot lava.
Here are some of the best tips to help you win at Hangman or Hanging With Friends:
Learn the frequencies of the letters: there are some letters that are used more than others in normal words. E is the most common vowel and S is the most common consonant. For that reason, guessing these letters can often find at least one letter of the puzzle. If you learn the frequencies of words, you can gradually move down the scale until you find enough letters to make a guess.
Find the vowels first: Finding the vowels that are in the puzzle is one of the best first steps you can take in solving the puzzle. This doesn’t mean you have to go through all the vowels for every puzzle. Instead, you’ll go over the vowels until you think you’ve got them all. Start with E, then move on to A, then O, I, and finally U. If you get an E and you’re at the end of the puzzle, that means there’s another vowel in the puzzle that’s more strategically important, and you’ve narrowed your choices from one in five to one in four.
When you have your vowels, think about reasonable consonants: if you have multiple words and one has three letters and the last letter of that three letter word is E, then you might narrow down your choices. ‘He’ and ‘She’ are candidates, so I would work from there. Similarly, there are common consonant-vowel combinations that work together, such as RE, ER, ED, ES, ING; finding these patterns makes it much easier to guess the entire Hangman or Hanging with Friends puzzle.
Use an online hangman solver: If you are really stumped, then you can use an online hangman solver to help you. This kind of help can be the key to getting your mind thinking of words and letters you might not have thought of otherwise. An online hangman solver works by searching a common dictionary for the letter patterns you’ve entered and returning any matching words. By using this type of help, you can get an idea of the types of words your opponent chooses and it will help you with future games.