Hangman Game: Play Hangman Free Online

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Hangman

Guess the hidden word one letter at a time. Every wrong letter builds one more piece of the gallows. Pick a category and a difficulty, then press Play, or take the Daily Word everyone gets today.

How to play Hangman

The game picks a hidden word from the category you choose. You see one empty tile for every letter. Your job is to open every tile before your lives run out.

Pick a category and a difficulty on the start screen, then press Play. A fresh word is dealt.
Tap a letter on the keyboard, or type a letter on a real keyboard if you play on a PC.
If the letter is in the word, every tile with that letter opens at once. One good guess can open three or four tiles.
If the letter is not in the word, you lose one life and one more piece of the gallows is drawn. The wrong letter joins the list under the word, so you never guess it twice by mistake.
Open the last tile and you win the round, with a bonus for every life you have left. Run out of lives and the round ends, and the game shows you the word.
Stuck? Press Hint to reveal the most common hidden letter. You get three hints per round, and each one costs points, so save them for hard words.

Used letters change colour on the keyboard: green for a hit, dim red for a miss. A letter you already tried cannot be picked again, so the keyboard is also your memory.

Controls for phone and PC

Action	Phone / tablet	PC / laptop
Guess a letter	Tap the letter key	Click the letter key, or press the key on your keyboard
Use a hint	Tap Hint	Click Hint
Skip to a new word	Tap New Word	Click New Word
Change category or difficulty	Tap Menu	Click Menu
Turn sound on or off	Tap the speaker button	Click the speaker button

Rules and scoring, exactly as this game plays them

One guess opens every match. Letters are never hidden twice. If a word holds the same letter in three places, one right guess opens all three tiles and pays for all three.

Wrong letters build the gallows. The drawing has ten pieces: the base, the post, the beam, the brace, the rope, then the head, the body, two arms and the legs. The pieces appear in step with your lives, so the drawing is always an honest picture of how much room you have left.

Scoring is simple and fixed. A correct letter pays 10 points for every tile it opens. A wrong letter costs 5 points. A hint costs 50 points, and the letter it reveals pays nothing. When you finish a word you earn a win bonus of 100 points plus 25 points for every life left. Your score never drops below zero, and your best round score is saved.

A clean win is worth far more than a lucky one. Guessing a seven-letter word with no mistakes and all lives left pays 70 points for the letters and 350 bonus points on Easy. Every wrong letter cuts the bonus twice: once for the 5 points it costs, and once for the life it burns.

Categories and difficulty levels

Six categories hold 24 common words each: Animals, Countries, Food, Sports, Jobs and Nature. Pick the Mix button and the game draws from all 144 words at once. Every word is a common English word, the kind you meet in school books and daily talk.

Level	Lives	Word length	Best for
Easy	10	3 to 5 letters	Learning the game and relaxed rounds
Medium	8	4 to 7 letters	The classic game for most players
Hard	6	6 to 10 letters	Strong spellers who want real pressure

Short words are not always easy. A three-letter word gives you very few tiles to work with, and one bad vowel guess can cost a third of your lives on Hard. Long words give more tiles and more patterns to read, but they hide more letters too. Most players find Medium the fairest fight.

The Daily Word and win streaks

Press Daily Word for the one word every player gets today. It plays on Medium difficulty, and the game remembers your first result of the day. A new word arrives every morning, so the daily round is the fairest test of skill the game offers: same word, same lives, everyone equal.

Every win adds one to your win streak, and a loss resets it to zero. Your current streak and your best streak both show on the game and save in your browser. Chasing a long streak changes how you play: safe letters first, hints spent early, and no wild guesses at the end.

Tips that win rounds

Start with the vowels. Almost every English word holds A, E, I, O or U. Open one or two vowels first and the shape of the word appears fast.
Then take the busy letters. After the vowels, try R, S, T, L and N. These letters do most of the work in common words, and each hit opens the pattern wider.
Read the pattern, not the alphabet. When tiles show _ A _ A _ A, the word is telling you its rhythm. Think of words that fit the shape before you spend another life.
Watch the word endings. A last tile pair is often ING, ED or ER in longer words, and S is a common final letter. A good ending guess can open three tiles at once.
Spend hints while they still pay. A hint costs 50 points, but a win bonus pays 25 points per life. Burning a hint early to protect three lives is a fair trade. Burning one on your last life is not.
Use the category. The category is real information. In Food, a word ending in A is often PASTA or PIZZA. In Sports, a long word is often a game played by millions. Let the theme narrow your guesses.
Never guess blind at the end. With two lives left, a random letter is a coin flip with your streak. Read the tiles once more. The word is usually closer than it looks.

Is Hangman free and safe to play?

Yes. The game is free. It runs fully inside this page. It asks for no name, no email and no account. It installs nothing on your device. Your best score, your streaks and your settings stay in your browser only.

Hangman is an original game made by GameOLL, built on the classic word game that children have played on paper for generations. Every word list here was written for this game, with common words that suit players of all ages.

More games and guides on GameOLL

Want every game in one place? Visit our Play Games page.
Love letters and grids? Play Word Search Quest, our word search game.
Think in number grids instead? Play Sudoku Master, our sudoku game.
Prefer a board battle? Play Checkers Master, our checkers game.
Take it slow with cards in Spider Solitaire, our spider solitaire game.
Chase the big tile in Tile Merge 2048, our 2048 game.

Hangman FAQ

Is Hangman free to play?

Yes. This hangman game is 100% free. You play the full game right on this page, with every category and every difficulty level. There is no download, no sign-up and no payment.

How many lives do I get?

That depends on the difficulty. Easy gives you 10 lives and short words. Medium gives you 8 lives. Hard gives you 6 lives and the longest words. Every wrong letter costs one life and draws one more piece of the gallows.

How does the scoring work?

A correct letter earns 10 points for every place it appears in the word. A wrong letter costs 5 points. A hint costs 50 points. When you finish a word, you earn a bonus of 100 points plus 25 points for every life you have left. Your score never drops below zero.

What does the Hint button do?

A hint reveals the most common letter still hidden in the word. You get three hints in each round, and each one costs 50 points. The revealed letter earns no points, so a hint is best saved for the moment you are truly stuck.

What is the Daily Word?

The Daily Word is one word that every player gets on the same day. It plays on Medium difficulty, and the game remembers whether you won it. Come back tomorrow for a fresh word.

Does the game save my progress?

Yes, in your own browser. It keeps your best score, your current win streak, your best streak, and the category and difficulty you picked last. Nothing leaves your device, and there is no account to make.

Final verdict: should you play Hangman?

Yes — if you want a quick word fight that always fits your mood. Hangman here is the honest classic: real categories, fair scoring, hints that cost you, and a gallows that never lies about your lives. Easy is a warm-up, Medium is the true game, Hard is a spelling test under pressure, and the Daily Word gives you one fair fight every morning. Pick a category, and save the figure.

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Last updated: November 5, 2026. Hangman v1.0 — the first release of our original hangman game, with six word categories, three difficulty levels, points-costing hints, win streaks and a daily word. An original GameOLL browser game. Found a bug? Tell us in the comments and we will fix it in the next version.