How to Play Hangman Online With Friends (Rules, Tips and Best Letters)

Hangman is the paper-and-pencil game most of us learned at a school desk. Played online, it needs no paper, works across any distance, and you can play it with a group instead of one person. This version is co-operative, so everyone in the room works together against the same hidden word.

The rules

• One hidden word per round. You see how many letters it has and its category, such as animals, food, sports, countries or vehicles. There are around twenty categories.
• Guess one letter per turn. Players take turns. A correct letter fills in everywhere it appears in the word.
• Six wrong guesses end the round. A wrong letter adds one strike for the whole room, then the turn moves on. Reveal every letter before the sixth strike and you win.
• No repeats. A word doesn't come up twice in the same session, so a long game night doesn't recycle answers.
• It's one team. Everyone guessing shares the same word and the same six strikes, so you're not racing each other.
• The host sets up the round. The host starts each round and everyone else guesses. If the host is the only person in the room, they guess too.

Which letters to guess first

In English, some letters turn up far more often than others. Starting with them gives you the most information for the fewest strikes.

• Start with the vowels E and A. Most words contain at least one of them. If both miss, you've learned the word is unusual, and I and O are next.
• Then R, S, T, N and L. They're the most common consonants, and they combine into the endings and starts of lots of words.
• Use the word length. A word with three letters is probably built around one vowel. A long word almost always has at least two.
• Save J, Q, X and Z for last. Only guess them when the shape of the word rules out the common letters.

Using the category

The category does more work than people realise. A five-letter animal is a short list: horse, zebra, otter, camel and so on. A five-letter anything is a huge one. Say the category out loud before you guess and run through the words you know that fit the length. A guess that tests two candidates at once beats a guess at the most common letter.

Tips for playing in a group

• Talk before you guess. Since you share the strikes, the best letter is the one the group agrees on, not the first one typed.
• Give the quiet player the hard turn. Rotating turns means someone gets the risky guess. Let whoever spotted the pattern make it.
• Look for endings. If the word ends in a letter you've found, try ING, ED, ER or LY before you guess something random.
• Deal a fresh word. The host can start a new word without anyone leaving the room.

Playing alone

You can start a room by yourself and guess too, which is a good way to practise the letter order above. The host can also add computer players to fill the table if you want a bigger group.

How to set it up

Create a Hangman room, then send the four-digit code or the link. Everyone joins from their own phone with no account. Games take three to eight minutes, which makes it a good warm-up before something longer. If your group likes it, try Word Scramble next, where everyone races to unjumble the same word.