Hangman

[Fiona1986]

R and S

Just to go back to an earlier post - how do you play hangman in a printed magazine? I mean, if you make guesses, how does it confirm your answer?

[shadow]

The boy who wanted a dog?

It's a lot easier with the / in!

[Maureen1954]

_ _ _ / _ _ _ / W _ _ / W _ _ _ _ _ / _ / _ _ G

Letters not in game as follows.......

R S

[Maureen1954]

Good Boy Shadow and now over to you!!!

[shadow]

____/__/_/________/______

[MJE]

     Could I suggest that, in future, the breaks between words *not* be indicated? - makes it too easy. I actually quite quickly solved "The Boy Who Wanted a Dog" before seeing *any* guessed letters confirmed, but put in a guess myself, not wanting to spoil the puzzle too quickly. And if I had more than about 10 minutes to spare now, I'm quite confident I could solve this one too, purely by the numbers of letters in the words, without knowing any specific letters at all.
     Just an idea worth considering, maybe....

Regards, Michael.

[MJE]

R and S

Just to go back to an earlier post - how do you play hangman in a printed magazine? I mean, if you make guesses, how does it confirm your answer?

     You guess a letter, then look up a table which is provided on the facing page, and find the right row and column for that letter and that word (12 words are provided for the whole game, so there are 12 rounds in all), and there is a number there. That number leads you to a second table, and you look up the number you were just given, and that gives you one or more numbers. Those represent the positions within the word that that letter occurs: for example, "1, 3" for "E" would mean that the 1st and 3rd letters are "E", as in "elephant". If the letter doesn't occur at all in the word, then "0" is given in that second table - and you have to add another part to the hanged stick figure. The gallows is already done, so you have only six guesses: the head, the body, and the four limbs.
     So you effectively have to jump through a few hoops to confirm your guesses, so that you can't cheat too easily. As long as you trying to play honestly, it works. Of course in this version you are not playing against another player - just trying to determine what the word is before you are hanged.

Regards, Michael.

[Julie2owlsdene]

I've never seen pages and pages of discussion on just one simple game before. Heavens!! It's only a game. Just play it as Moonraker wanted it played in the first place, it's not rocket science!!!

[Daisy]

Well I'll suggest A and E, hoping at least the A will be correct as there seems to be a one letter word.

[Moonraker]

Yes, it does seem to be spiralling out of control from what I had intended as a simple game! I have seen it played elsewhere online, and it is simply a matter of asking for a couple of letters and the first one guessing correctly, wins.

It doesn't even have to be Blyton related, but I think a clue is needed to point people in the right direction.

----- -----
Clue: Spotty dog-owner?

Someone suggests a D and an E

ED--- ----- would be the result of that. Someone might now guess (correctly, in this case), EDGAR STICK

---- -- -----
Cat in a chemist's shop? (Non-Blyton)

E & S?

--SS -- ----S

More letters can be asked for until someone realises that the answer is PUSS IN BOOTS.

Of course, if you all want to make it harder by not showing the number of letters or where the spaces are, so be it. I just don't think it's necessary to make it that complicated.

As I have shown in the above examples, individual letters can be shown with a hyphen, and a space with a space!

[Anita Bensoussane]

The trouble is that both of those examples could be worked out from the clues alone before anyone even guessed any letters, so the question setter would need to bear that in mind.

As I said earlier, not leaving gaps between the words might make the game more of a challenge.

By the way, I can't see the numbers of dashes in Shadow's words as they appear to be joined together into one line per word, though that may be deliberate. Five On a Treasure Island comes to mind, looking at the lengths of the lines, though of course I can't be at all certain.

[shadow]

Anita gets the question correct - conveniently meaning that I don't have to put any letters in. OTY

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks, Shadow.

Okay, I'll try putting a title without gaps between the words and see how things go.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(I don't think any clue is needed other than that it's a title. If it were a Blyton-related phrase or something like that, I may well have needed to give a hint.)

[Fiona1986]

I'll have an A and an R please, Anita

[Anita Bensoussane]

Here goes:

- - R - - - - R - A - - A - - R - - - - - R -