Why a snowman?

The old pencil game of hangman is a good spelling game with a grim picture attached, one line for every wrong letter. We wanted the guessing without that picture, so ours has a snowman on a sunny day. Every wrong letter, the sun melts him a little. If he melts all the way, he turns into a puddle that is still smiling. We’re not the first to swap the picture. Some people play with apples crossed off a tree, or slices taken from a pie.

The twist is that the sun is not the only thing in the sky. Guess two right letters in a row and a small cloud drops some snow back on him. He also gets a carrot nose, then a scarf, then a hat. A good streak can rebuild him after a bad start.

A bit of real hangman history

Nobody knows who invented the game. The oldest description most write-ups point to is in The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a two-volume collection by the folklorist Alice Bertha Gomme. The first volume came out in London in 1894. It lists a game called Birds, Beasts, and Fishes, and Gomme’s note on it comes from Barnes, now part of south-west London.

It was a slate game. One player wrote the first and last letters of the name of a bird, beast or fish, with a cross for each letter in between, so a bullfinch looked like B × × × × × × × h. The others took turns guessing the whole name, not single letters. Whoever got it first scored one mark for each cross and wrote the next one. If nobody got it, the writer took the marks. There was no drawing at all, only a score.

The idea later made it to television. Wheel of Fortune, created by Merv Griffin, is based on hangman, which he played with his sister on family road trips. The show first aired on NBC on January 6, 1975.

The five chapters

There are 50 levels, 10 per chapter. Each level holds three words, and every new try brings the next one.

• Animals: a picture clue for every word, from ANT and CAT up to ELEPHANT. 6 snow.
• In the Garden: a short word clue, from TREE up to VEGETABLE PATCH. 6 snow.
• Weather: no clues, from RAIN up to SNOWFLAKE. 5 snow.
• Foods: no clues, from EGG up to WATERMELON. 5 snow.
• Hawker Food: no clues and only 4 snow, from OTAH and SATAY up to CHAR KWAY TEOW. The result card tells you what each dish is.

How to play

• Tap a letter on the screen keyboard, or type it on a real keyboard.
• A right letter fills in every spot where it appears in the word.
• Each wrong letter lets the sun melt the snowman a little. Guess the word before he melts.
• Two right letters in a row bring back a bit of snow, and add a carrot nose, then a scarf, then a hat.
• Stars: 3 for 0 or 1 wrong letters, 2 for 2 or 3, and 1 for saving him with more.
• Small players can use the first-letter hint once per level. It fills in the first letter and costs 1 star.
• Finish a level to unlock the next one. Your stars save on this device.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.
• Sound is on to start. Tap 🔊 to mute, or 🎵 for music.

Tips

Start with the vowels. Almost every word has at least one. E and A are good first picks.

Then try the common letters. The most common letters in English run roughly E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, L, U. Save Q, X and Z for when you can see the word.

Read the gaps. The number of blanks is a clue too. In Hawker Food, a three-letter word at the end could well be MEE.

Guard your streak. When you are fairly sure of a letter, guess it before a long shot. Two right in a row brings snow back, and one miss resets the count.

Your turn

The first snowman is standing at the top of this page, and the sun is already out. Scroll up and pick a letter.