Hangman

Goal

Guess the hidden word, letter by letter, before the balloon breaks all its ropes. Each letter that is not in the word frees a rope: at the eighth, the balloon floats away and the game is lost.

When you guess

• Tap a letter on the on-screen keyboard or type it on your own keyboard.
• The theme of the word is shown to guide you.
• The hint reveals a letter, but costs a rope.

When the AI guesses

• Think of a word without saying it and enter its number of letters.
• The AI suggests a letter: tap every square where it appears, then confirm. If it is not there, answer "Absent". On the keyboard: digits for the squares, Enter to confirm.
• If the AI runs out of its eight ropes, you win. You can then reveal your word: the AI checks your answers.

Online

Taking turns, one player types a secret word (3 to 12 letters, from the dictionary) and the other guesses it, as above. Four rounds: each of you chooses twice. If you find the word, you score the number of ropes left (1 to 8); otherwise no points. The word never leaves the device of the player who chose it before the end of the round: only its fingerprint (SHA-256) is sent, then the word is revealed and checked.

About the AI

Your words are drawn from a list of common words; the difficulty of each was measured by simulating a typical player, which lets the levels be balanced. When the AI guesses, it filters the 269,846 words of the dictionary according to your answers and weighs each word by how common it is. At Master level, it evaluates each letter by simulating the rest of the game over all the words still possible (the probability of finding the word before the last rope) and solves endgames exactly. At Expert level, it minimizes the expected number of mistakes over the next two moves. At lower levels, it sticks to everyday vocabulary and makes less precise choices.