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Hangman : The Board Game ... ( Originally Posted October 28th, 2006 )

by Ken Tuccio

Remember playing Hangman?

Hangman; that game where someone put blank spaces signifying a word on a piece of paper, and your mission was to guess that word, but with every letter you got wrong a piece of the stickman got sent to the gallows.

I'm sure you've played it.

Have you ever said to yourself, "Boy, this would make a great board game !!!"?

No?

Well, me either, but apparently the folks at Funville Games think it would carry over well into the board game world, because they created this …

Hangman : The Board Game.

I've never been to Funville, but if what they consider "fun" is a game that kids used to play to get out of doing the multiplication tables in the 4th grade, I don't think I'll be going there for drinks anytime soon.

The first thing that strikes me about this game is the box.

As you can see from this picture below, the box features two people on it, a guy and a girl …

I'm going to make the assumption that this is a young couple, enjoying the first love of their youth. The guy seems absolutely amazed by the Hangman antics going on around him. He's got a look that shows terror, excitement, and anticipation. The girl on the other hand has a look on her face that clearly says, "I should have dated Colonel Mustard.".

Between you and me, I don't think her relationship with Colonel Mustard would have worked out. First off, the age difference is too big a factor. Sure Colonel Mustard might go for the young chicks, but there is at least a 20 year age difference between the two, and that's a bit much. Secondly, based on some of Colonel Mustard's past relationships, the chances of the girl being found dead in the kitchen after being pummeled by a candlestick are pretty damn good.

Anyways, Hangman is a game that people play out of necessity.

As a kid, during the holidays, my house was always big on board games. I think it was because of this fact that I became a big board game guy. I currently own a pile of board games about as tall as I am. Board games are great entertainment for nights when you've got people around and there's nothing left to do.

With friends and family I've played countless games of Guess Who?, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, and more. However, I can honestly say that never once have I sat down with my friends, grabbed a piece of scrap paper, and said, "DUDE, LETS PLAY HANGMAN !!!".

Hangman is like Tic-Tac-Toe, you only play it when you've got nothing else at your disposal.

That being said, I'm not expecting Hangman : The Board Game to set my world on fire, but I've been surprised by board games before, so lets see what's inside …

Judging from what I see after I open this thing up, I don't think I'll be surprised this time.

This looks like the board game you'd play when you're sentenced to an eternity in Hell. In between shoveling coal and re-watching Vanilla Sky over and over again, you're forced to play Hangman with the disembodied corpse of Kenneth Lay.

There seems to be a few components to this game, the first of which is the base …

The folks at Funville spared no expense, clearly ripping off the design of one of those cheap dollar store ice cube trays. This looks like the kind of thing I would bury a dead hamster in as opposed to something I'd look to for board game themed enjoyment.

After the base, you have the "gallows" …

If America ever goes back to public hangings as a form of execution, and I get sentenced to death, I would like to ask that I get hung by something that is neon orange. If the last color you see is neon orange, your final memories are going to be of fruit and Zubaz pants, and those are two good things to think of when you're about to croak.

The orange gallows look like the scraps that the folks at Hasbro didn't need for Mouse Trap. They were probably about to toss them in the garbage, but the corporate suits had a brainstorm to make extra money, and said, "Hell, lets sell them to the folks at Funville", and of course Funville bought them up.

To me this little setup looks more like something that would be in the diorama made by a suicidal kid as opposed to something that screams "family fun", but what do I know.

Next you have the "hangman" himself …

Wow, they couldn't at least give the guy a face?

This thing looks like the second cousin of the Cingular splotch. It's a bunch of mis-shapen bingo tabs with hooks on them. They just so happen to look somewhat like the silhouette of a person who will at some point hang from the gallows …

See, when you finally lynch the white guy, that's what he looks like.

The final component of this marvel is the letter tabs …

You get a certain number of each letter.

I assume the decision as to how many of each letter would end up being put in the game was heavily researched by the Funville Research and Development Department. They decided that A's were more important than K's, because you get 4 A's and 2 K's . Thus, if any of you were going to purchase this game in hopes of beating your friends with the word "Kankakee ", you're going to be out of luck.

One major gripe I have is the color of these tabs. The tab itself is purple and the letters are a dark green …

Obviously, this makes the letters difficult to read, and something tells me that in the game of Hangman the ability to read the letters is an important component to the overall enjoyment of the game.

The gameplay is easy enough.

One person is the "hangman", and one person is the "guesser". The "hangman" thinks of a word that is no more than 8 letters long, and displays it on the base so that the "guesser" can only see the back of the tabs. The "guesser" begins selecting letters and every time he gets one right the "hangman" turns a tab, everytime he gets one wrong a piece of our poor white little friend gets hung by the gallows.

I would play the game myself to illustrate the minutes of fun it is sure to give me, but I'd rather slam my finger in the fridge door.

When you're finished playing Hangman : The Board Game you'll be pleased to know that it comes together nicely as a "travel case" …

Thanks to this innovation, you now have the ability to take a crappy board game on the road with you wherever you go.

Sure, some people might say that you could have the same fun with a .49 cent notepad and a pen, but those people have obviously never been to Funville.