REVIEW

AT 3,17; "HANGMAN FOR IDIOTS"

Reviewer: Frosty
Developer: Andrew Green
Genre: Word Games
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

I love a game logo* and, in Hangman for Idiots, Andrew Green has managed to create a corker using only attribute blocks and one simple UDG.

* Famously Mrs P jokes that the first two weeks of any Myke-P project are taken up doing a logo and many many projects over the years haven't made it much further!

Andrew describes this as a 'version' of Hangman in which "you have to try and work out a phrase by guessing letters..." and if you "get too many wrong" it's game over. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's just regular Hangman!? So what does Andrew's version offer that's different or new?

Whereas CSSCGC 'classic' Multiload Hangman gave us an impressive selection of 250,000+ words (and staggering loading times) this title gives us an instantaneous selection of 10 (Count 'em - Ed) multiword phrases to decipher instead.

After selecting 0 to 9 the screen clears to display the blanked-out phrase and you're presented with the minimalistic brief; "Enter letter."

You start off traditionally with an 'e' and the blanked-out phrase redraws (surprisingly slowly) with that letter filled in.

You follow this with a few more vowels and you start to see possibilities so you enter a 'w,' a 't' and the phrase begins to take form.

It's beautifully simple and bordering on enjoyable when, suddenly, you realise; "Hang on. I haven't got one wrong yet!" and there's the noticeable absence of gallows and stick men familiar to other versions of this game.

Cynically your goal shifts from guessing the phrase correctly to attempting to get one letter wrong. You become more systematic and your guesses go; "QWERTY..." "ASDFG..." "ZXCVB..." (Note: international player's guesses may begin "AZERTY" or "QWERTZ!")

Quickly you realise you've 'cracked' the phrase but, more importantly, that you've managed to side-step what little fun there was to derive from this game by being a bit of a smart arse.

Of course Andrew's gag is that all 10 phrases contain all 26 letters of the alphabet, however, my advice is to play this game as if it were possible to lose and to see if you can guess the phrase before you've hit every letter - at least that way it's moderately fun rather than simply being an exercise in keyboard testing.

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