Hangman Pro (also known as Hangman for the Macintosh, and the successor to Hangman Plus, Hang3000, and Hang3001) is a modern take on the classic hangman game, the same one we all played when we were kids, on paper or on the blackboard at school. Hangman Pro is the classic word-guessing game. Hangman Pro is easy to play, and fun for all ages. Letters can be chosen using the mouse or the keyboard. Words can be selected from dozens of built-in categories, or you can enter your own words, or even enter whole vocabulary lists from school. In fact, you can even create your own CustomWords Menu with your own categories of words. You can also use your own pictures and photos in Hangman Pro. Use pictures of your friends and family. The names of the pictures will become the words that must be guessed. After each round, the picture will be displayed as part of the game. Hangman Pro is a colorful, educational game with digitized sound effects, speech, non-violent graphics, a little cultural literacy, and whole lot more. Non-violent, family software at its best.

The screenshot just above shows a game already in progress. As you can see, the category is Shakespearean Phrases. The game shown here is two correct letter guesses away from being won. Can you guess the missing letters?

Hangman Pro also supports the speech synthesis that's built-in to the Macintosh. The speech synthesizer can spell and/or say the word that was just guessed. It can even speak words of encouragement when you win or tease you a little when you lose a round. These phrases are easily customized too. Hangman Pro includes many speech-related enhancements, making the game more fun and more usable for visually-challenged users.

Hangman Pro includes a Knowledge Area. Game words (that is, the words or phrases that you guess in the game) can include information about, or a definition of, that particular word or phrase. For instance, if the word category is Countries, when any round of the game is concluded, the capital of the country will be shown. If the word category is Composers (or Authors, etc.), a few facts, or selected works, about the composer or author in question will be displayed. Hangman Pro includes many categories of words with this extra information. This feature painlessly adds a little bit of cultural literacy. It's learning, without even knowing you're learning. It's fun!

Imagine how much fun it could be if you use the names of your family members and friends as words to be guessed, and then add a little entertaining information about each person. This information will be displayed at the end of each round, sure to bring a smile to all around.

Hangman Pro now features 72 categories of words (each with an amusing picture), including Anatomy, Animals, Artists, Astronauts, Astronomy, Authors, Baseball Teams, Basketball Teams, Best Actors, Best Actresses, Best Pictures, Birds, Books, Canada, Cars, Cartoons and Comics, Chess, Christmas, Cities, Clothing, Colors, Composers, Computer Buzzwords, Confusing Pairs, Constellations, Cosmetics Aisle, Cosmology, Countries, Country Music, Desserts, Dinosaurs, Dogs, Elements, First Ladies, Football Teams, Fruits, Hard High School Words, Hard Words, Hockey Teams, Insects, Islands, Jazz, Jewelry, Jobs, Magazines, Mars, Monsters, Musical Instruments, Mythology, Olympic Events, Operas, Planets, Presidents, Religion, Rock and Roll, Rocks and Minerals, Scientists, Shakespeare, Shakespearean Phrases, Star Trek, States, State Capitals, Street Signs, Television Shows, Tools, Toys and Games, Trees, Universities, Vegetables, Vice Presidents, Weather, and Women in History. Truly something for everyone.

If the built-in categories aren't enough, you can make your own lists in Hangman Pro. Make a list of particularly hard words, and add their definitions which will appear in the Knowledge Area. Make a list of family members, and add a few entertaining words about each of them. Make a special list for each child, including just the words from his or her own vocabulary list. There is no limit to the number of lists you can have.

You can even make your own CustomWords Menu. The standard Words Menu includes the 72 built-in categories of words. But, all the items in the CustomWords Menu will be the names of the lists of words that you create. Your categories of words are given the same status, and the ease of selection as all the built-in categories of words. This is YOUR game. Customize it as you see fit. You can even add a picture of your choice to be displayed when your category is chosen, and if you want, you can even have a picture for every word in your list. It's up to you.

Hangman Pro also supports hints! At the same time you enter a word to be guessed, and information about that word, you can also add a hint to help the user guess the word. In the Game Preferences, you can decide whether you want hints to be available always, never, or just as a last resort. Hints are a good way to add a little extra information and possibly a little humor to each game.

Hangman Pro supports an extended character set and allows the entry and display of words in the following languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. Accented characters from these language are easily handled.

Hangman Pro for Macintosh is played, by default, in a relaxed mode...take all the time you need to think about each word. But, optionally (and especially with schools in mind), you can also choose to use the Timer Mode, where a selectable time limit is used when guessing letters. This allows more words to be covered in a single class.

Hangman Pro is a colorful, educational game with digitized sound effects, speech, non-violent graphics, a little cultural literacy, and whole lot more. Hangman Pro is available now for a 10-Day Free Trial.

Requirements: Hangman Pro is a Universal Binary Macintosh application. It runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macintoshes. It's compatible with any version of Apple's Mac OS X and works perfectly on Apple's newest Snow Leopard OS (Rosetta is NOT needed.) A Windows version of Hangman Pro is also available.

Version 1.0 - Released November 24, 2003

Version 1.0.1 - Released November 30, 2003 - Added a Preference to allow guessed photos to be stretched to fit the available space, or displayed in their original aspect ratio.

Version 1.0.2 - Released December 10, 2003 - Fixed a spelling error in one word in the Cosmetics Aisle category.

Version 1.0.3 - Released January 13, 2004 - Added a display of the number of valid photos found when "Choose Photo Folder" menu item is utilized.

Version 1.0.4 - Released February 3, 2004 - Improved help text, and added a new Universities category.

Version 1.0.5 - Released February 24, 2004 - Added a new Cosmology category, and improved the already existing Astronomy category.

Version 1.0.6 - Released March 1, 2004 - Added a new Mars category, improved the already existing Planets category, and updated the Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture categories with the results of last night's Oscars telecast.

Version 1.0.7 - Released April 16, 2004 - Added a new Dogs category.

Version 1.0.8 - Released June 28, 2004 - Word categories, words, information, and hints are now identical on both platforms (Mac and PC.)

Version 2.0.0 - Released November 15, 2004 - This major update adds the ability for users to enter phrases up to 52 characters in length, adds a new category (Shakespearean Phrases) especially designed to show off the increased phrase length, adds the ability for users to add their own custom word lists to a new Custom Words Menu giving the user's custom word lists the same status as the dozens of built-in word lists, linearizes the alphabetic icons making the letters easier to choose for younger players, and much more.

Version 2.0.1 - Released January 4, 2005 - Modified the default icon to indicate version 2 and improved the Custom Word List handling. (Double-clicking a Custom Word List now rebuilds the Custom Menu with all the Custom Word Lists that are found in the same folder as the word list that was just double-clicked. Additionally, Hangman Pro will automatically engage the Custom Word List just double-clicked. In other words, it now does what intuitively you'd have hoped it would do!)

Version 2.0.2 - Released February 9, 2005 - Updated the Baseball Teams category (removed Montreal Expos, added Washington Nationals)

Version 2.0.3 - Released February 28, 2005 - Updated the Best Actors, Best Actresses, and Best Pictures categories with the results of the latest Oscars.

Version 2.0.4 - Released June 6, 2005 - Updated the Baseball Teams category.

Version 2.0.5 - Released November 3, 2005 - Added new words to the Hard Words category.

Version 2.0.6 - Released January 5, 2006 - Added a few new words to the Hard Words category, modified a few words in the Desserts category, added related software information, etc.

Version 2.0.7 - Released March 9, 2006 - Added a new preference (Clear Info on New Game) which clears the information displayed about the previously guessed word or phrase, when a new game has started. Also updated the information in the Best Pictures, Best Actors and Best Actresses categories with the results of the latest Oscars telecast.

Version 2.0.8 - Released August 12, 2006 - Improved the "Hard Words" category, etc.

Version 2.0.9 - Released October 1, 2006 - Improved the "Planets" category (think Pluto!), etc.

Version 2.1.0 - Released February 26, 2007 - Updated the Best Actors, Best Actresses, and Best Pictures categories with the results of the latest Oscar's Telecast.

Version 3.0.0 - Released October 8, 2009 - MAJOR UPDATE - This version of Hangman Pro is a complete rewrite from the ground up. Hangman Pro is now a full-fledged Universal Binary Macintosh application. Hangman Pro now runs natively on both older PowerPC and newer Intel-based Macintoshes (Rosetta is NOT required.) Hangman Pro is now easily re-sizeable, more colorful, more soundful, more customizable, more educational and more fun than ever.

• "I just downloaded Hangman Plus v4.0 and can't keep my students away from it."
• "Thanks for the great game (Hangman Plus). I tutor children and use the customization feature to reinforce lessons."
• "I can hardly wait until my granddaughter is old enough to play this game with me."
• "It brings back memories of the days I played Hang Man on the chaulkboards of the public school. Our whole family enjoys your game and have competitions with one another over who can get the most words correct without getting hung, and we're learning something at the same time! We have a daughter with special needs, who really enjoys and benefits from this game. She loves word games, and your game motivates her to use the computer more."
• "I highly enjoy your game (on computers) Hangman. I highly play it everyday."
• "Hangman Plus is wonderful! My students love it and the customizing has really helped introduce new vocabulary in a non-threatening environment! Thank You!"
• "We are using it with some of our students who need a little help with their English, and have found they enjoy learning when they think it is just a game."
• "It's lots of fun and I am especially appreciative as the game works well with some of my students. I am a music therapist and I work primarily on a private basis with handicapped students. On their behalf, thank you."
• "Procol Harum ruined my winning streak on the music category of your Hangman Plus, but I won't hold it against you...Truth told: I haven't been so glued to the monitor since way back when Zork was first out...Thanks for making Hangman Plus concise, clever, full of neat sound effects (-and especially for resisting the urge to have Vanna White spin the letters around when you guess them correctly!)...Hangman Plus is gritty, fun, and best of all - IT ROCKS!...P.S. Who ARE Procol Harum anyhow? Was I born before or after their finest hour?"
• "I love your game! Especially the sounds! That laugh. Great! Is it yours?"
• "Your Hangman Plus is the best! I made a hard drive full of education and entertainment games and sent it to a friend for his 7 yr old son. Hangman is his fave! He uses it for spelling homework."
• "I'm a Mac user and I have one of your games called Hangman and I liked some of the graphics and now I have a suggestion for you. This suggestion might be hard. Anyways I know there are a lot of games for a computers and there are games for Nintendo, Sega and Super Initendo, So my suggestion is a new game for the Mac. I'm sure you've heard of Mortal Kombat a game children love for Sega and Super Nintendo and I know you've help make games and I've wondered if it would be possible for you to be able to make a game such as Mortal Kombat for a Mac. I am sure you think that it would be hard work and believe me it probably is. Well don't want to waste most of your time so I'll go. Write back if you have time. P.S. If you do make the game do you think I could have a copy."
• "I love your game Hangman Plus. It scares the living daylights out of my nephew, but he is only one, and shouldn't be playing computer games yet anyway."
• "...I am delighted with Brickles and Hangman and will be using it with one set of grandchildren this week-end and with another set later on...It is a relief to have games that challenge the reflexes and intellect without guns, slaughter, and explicit sex. From six to septuagenarian we are grateful to you."
• "I am a junior high computer teacher. My students used some games on a trial basis this quarter...Your game, Hangman Plus, was in the top five."
• "After playing Hang2000 only once, I was hooked! The graphics and sounds are superb. A perfect tool for educators..."
• "I used your demo of Hang2000 in my middle school special ed class of kids with learning disabilities. You have a winner!"
• "I'll pass the word - wonderful program!"
• "Have tracked your progress over the years -- WOW! The latest versions are wonderful!"
• "I just wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying your game Hang2000-I find it to be positively ADDICTING."
• "This is one of the best kids educational games I have seen in a while. Kids of all ages enjoy the game...even adults. Congratulations on a fine piece of work."
• "Thanks Ken, your games are awesome. Our friends are addicted."
• "My grandchildren and I are having a ball with these games."
• "Hangman was a hit. The students loved it and now are asking to play every day."
• "hey im commentin on ur game Hang2000 IT KICKS MAJOR BUTT AN I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!"
• "Thank you for the info to unlock the features of Hangman 2000. I look forward to procrastinating all those little jobs around the house that will go ignored while I feast upon your little game!"
• "Great game--thanks! I am having fun with it already, and my grandchildren will love it."
• "We LOVE it!!!"
• "...a great version of a classic game that most every child has played."
• "I really enjoy Hang2000. I've found out how much I don't know! :-)"
• "...both your Hangman and Brickles software are among the most popular with my special ed. students."
• "Your games are quite popular on the Mac in my waiting room."
• "Our family is having a blast with this game"
• "Your game has provided many smiles and chuckles, along with increasing knowledge. You are appreciated."
• "I am very impressed with your programs, and I know they will be a wonderful addition for my students here."
• "I think it's great what you're doing for todays' children."
• "It's a riot!"
• "You get my top-dog award. No one offers such personalized help as you. You're quite a guy."
• "Just wanted to let you know, that we are raising our 3 grandchildren, who along with us love your hangman version. Even our 5 1/2 yr. old waits her turn on the computer to play the Christmas words."
• "This game is absolutely charming."
• "My 4 year old child who can barely read loves guessing the letters"
• "Very good game for my grand kids (and me)"
• "My husband is a Stroke Survivor and it is amazing how this game has helped him in word retrieval as his speech was affected, and this is the first thing that he really enjoys doing."
• "Everyone in our family, from the 4th-grader to the old man (me) plays Hangman 3000. It has brought us a great deal of enjoyment. You have a right to feel proud."
• "The Hang3000 is brilliant and a godsend."
• "We got through all 42 [Presidents] by the way, before my wife insisted I put my daughter to bed at about 10:30! (The daughter wanted to go on and try all 50 states in States3000!)"
• "My middle school kids LOVE your programs. Am excited to get your new ones. I just started teaching U.S. History AND Language Arts in my learning disabilities middle school 8th grade class. THANK YOU!"
• "Am sending off your web page to all the teachers I know to pass the word. Also adding annotations on how well your stuff works with my kids."
• "I'm still excited to have my grandson start using the programs. Thanks again - count me as one of our happy customers!"
• "'Hecka cool' is the quote from my 8th grader who tried President's Wives this morning."
• "Good quality enrichment! Thanks again!"
• "Great fun and a good learning tool."
• "Thanks for all your help from me and my daughter she loves the game."
• "I am a single mother of an 12 year old son. I downloaded your Hangman2000 a few days ago and I just wanted to write and say, Thank You. You can't start to imagine how your game has helped my son out in his studies and I want to take this time to commend you for the thought of sharing your software with others."
• "We homeschool and think the games are great for learning and playing!"
• "Your games have made my Grandchildren very happy, which makes me very happy."
• "My grandsons and I were playing Hangman the other day and they really liked it. Brickles is still one of their favorites!"
• "By the way, my kid can't get her hands off AmericanHangman, and she's learning a lot of things American from it. Thanks for writing such a great game."
• "Love it. Great game for the kids and adults, too."
• "I thoroughly enjoyed the use of these programs during my trial period and find them to be very educational as well as just plain FUN!"
• "love your games - keep them coming!"
• "I like it and the kids love it. All the new stuff is a hit."
• "I'm glad that you retained the sexy voice in the Pro version!"
• "I really enjoy Hangman as do my grandchildren. They can't get over how much Grandma knows. Of course, they fail to take into account all the years I've lived and absorbed information: both trivial and worthwhile."
• "She loves Hangman Pro and plays at the assisted living facility where she lives."
• "I love this game. Thanks for the program."
• "The kid likes it!"
• "This is quite a fun little game."
• "I do love the Bible Hangman, and when I have "play time" find myself there."
• "We finally got a new iMac and are very happy that we now have Hangman Pro v2. My wife especially likes playing it. She is disabled and not able to do much at all. This is her favorite game."
• "It does work. Thank you so much. This is the reason it is a pleasure to work with you and your software. You always go the extra mile."
• "Thanx, Ken, for your game. Consider us fans."
• "I am spending sinful amounts of time with the new, and old varieties of Hangman, as well as Brickles!"
• "Fun game!"
• "You make great games!"
• "American Hangman is great. What a wonderful learning tool!"
• "Dearest Ken, My friend has inadvertently deleted your beloved Hangman from my computer!!! My husband is going crazy and needs it from you ASAP. Please send it to me. thanks for helping me out..... he loves it!!!!"
• "I've been playing Hangman since 1992! I love it!"
• "I want to thank you for your terrific games...the Hangman varieties. Do you have others as well? I find them helpful as a person with disabilities because of m.s.The games seem to help me think clearly, and the required dexterity of my hands to play is not too much, as in other games."
• "MY 11 YEAR OLD AND I LOVE YOUR GAMES"
• "I help run a Sunday school in Surrey in UK and we use your Hangman Bible game as a little light entertainment at the end of the session. The participants even ask for it so they certainly enjoy it."
• "I don't remember where I found your products, but I like them and so does my mom. Thanks."
• "Thanks Ken This game has already provided hours of fun for the family. i will checkout your other products."
• "I had been looking for 3 hours on the Internet for a Hangman program that could help my son with his spelling words and definitions. By the time I found yours I was so tired of being on the computer but excited that I found what I was looking for. It works and he is on his way to passing his spelling. I wish I would have thought of this earlier in the school year. This is how I learned my spelling words when I was a kid."
• "The kids enjoy your program and it really helps to reinforce the words we want them to know how to spell."
• "Your Hangman Pro was acquired and installed on our Mac in the library room up at our local senior center. Some of our folks wanna play games they understand other than solitaire. Most do not care for 'FPS' or noisy games. And occasionally they want to sit their grandkids on their lap playing as equal supportive competitors. The sounds from Hangman lead others in the library to smile, laugh, and walk over to see what the sillyness is about. And a few sign up for our Mac class. Then they get in touch with their own grandkids in this newfangled way. So you are an important party helping to drag some of our seniors into the twenty first century."
• "I have really enjoyed your hangman game I purchased last year as have our church youth and my nieces."