Hangman Deluxe

Old games become classics when it's proved they can stand the test of time. No matter how advanced technology gets, they get passed down subsequent generations, being educational yet fun to play, requiring nothing more than a pencil and a piece of paper.

One such is Hangman. It's simple and yet offers almost infinite possibilities of play. Everyone knows how to play it but just in case you were brought up in a cave by wolves…

One player thinks up a word and draws a line of blanks, one for each letter, and a scaffold for the noose. The other player attempts to guess the word by suggesting letters in turn.

If these letters are in the word, they're filled in on the blanks. If not, the other player starts drawing the 'hangman', starting with his head then his body followed by his limbs (six lines in all). If the word hasn't been guessed before all his arms and legs are drawn, the 'man' is hanged. It's all rather gruesome really.

In Hangman Deluxe, you choose one of four categories – Science, Culture, Sports and Leisure - then go through to the game screen to play against the phone.

The background, with its blue grid on white background and 'hand-drawn'-style graphics, brings back memories of doodling in jotters during classes, writing initials of girls we fancied or drawing hideous cartoons of teachers decapitating and eating pupils (we, well did anyway…).

At the top of the screen are the 26 letters of the alphabet arranged in three rows. Underneath is the dreaded hangman's scaffold and at the bottom the row of lines, each representing a letter in the word.

The game simply involves clicking on your choice of letter. Get it right and the letter appears on the row of lines on the bottom. Get it wrong and a line is drawn on the hangman, starting with his head, and five lines later ending with his left leg. But, in this version, you've still got one more chance left - get that wrong and your poor hangman is scribbled out.

There must be thousands of words in the Hangman Deluxe library, offering hours and hours of gaming – in all the time we tested it we never had the same word twice.

There's also a Bluetooth two-player option. Here you each think up a word, and then both try to guess the other's word. The first to either get it right or the last to get the 'Hangman' wins.

However, a small word of caution, Lemonquest is a German company and Hangman Deluxe seems to use American English – one example we found was "defense" (not the English "defence").

Yet for something so basic, the simple act of trying to guess each word quickly becomes compulsive. Hangman can be picked up by anyone, young or old, and doesn't take very long to play so it's perfect for killing time, as well as improving your vocabulary.