Hangman was the very first game built on The Problem Site!  It has remained largely unchanged since the beginning.  The graphical interface was slightly tweaked a couple years ago, but this is a brand new hangman!

The dictionary (over 127 thousand words!) is the same, but this hangman game is animated.  Don't worry, it's no more gruesome and macabre than the old version.  The new version has an animation of a pencil drawing the gallows and person.

For now I have left out the option to choose whether you are allowed 9, 10, 11, or 12 guesses; that option never seemed to get a lot of use anyway; I think most people felt that 9 was a reasonable number of guesses to make an interesting, but not too challenging game.

If you have an old browser, the animation will not show. Instead, you should see the same old image from the old version of the site.

Give our Animated Hangman a try! 

You will notice that some games (including Adders and Trio Match, which were both originally designed for keyboard play) now have a setup option labeled "Touch Controls".  These are controls for people who would rather use touch (or a mouse, on desktop machines) than the keyboard.

One of the options for "Touch Controls" is "Auto."  Setting the option to "Auto" results in the computer trying to guess, based on your browser size, whether you're using a desktop or mobile device, and setting the option automatically for you.  If the "Auto" option doesn't do what you want, you can select "Show" or "Hide" to tell the site NOT to auto-detect your preference.  You can also save your settings, so the computer will remember your preference.

Please note that settings are saved per user account, NOT per device, so if you swap between devices, and have different preferences based on your device, you'll need to reset the options each time you switch devices.  In that case, it's probably easier to just go with "Auto".

We're trying something different with Word Funnel.  It's not reasonable to do a high score list based on a single play of the game, since everyone gets a different board, and some boards are much harder than others.  So we've created a 'multi-level' mode of play for the game, which allows for high score lists.

In multi-level mode, each "game" is really just a single level of a larger game.  When you finish a level (either because you submit the last word, or because you ran out of time), if you have at least four out of six valid words, your move on to the next level.  In each successive level, you have five seconds less to complete the words.  Thus, on level 2, you have 55 seconds, on level 3, 50 seconds, etc.

If you don't have at least four valid words, your game is over.

Your game score, then, is the sum of all your level scores, and that's the number which appears in the high score lists.

Don't like the pressure of multi-level mode?  That's okay!  You can choose to disable it in your game options!

Adders and Trio Match are two games which have both been around for a long time.  Both were programmed as Flash applications, and since Flash is not mobile friendly, these two games are getting a 100% redesign from the bottom up.  Not a single line of code is getting reused.

In addition, both games are undergoing some changes in the game play.  Both games were built while my understanding of game design was still in its infancy, and the games suffer from some design flaws as a result.  

Adders

The main flaw with Adders is that there is very little grace in the game play.  You hit a wall and you're toast.  True, you have two more lives, but there is very little room for error before the game is finished.  With the new version, you're still toast if you crash into yourself, or if you hit an exterior wall, BUT, colliding with an interior wall will only mark a strike against you, and it takes three strikes to lose one of your three lives.

In other words, the length of a game has potential to be increased drastically.  It is my hope that this will make a more pleasurable playing experience.

Trio Match

Trio Match suffers from two simple flaws:

1. Without different "levels," there is no sense of accomplishment - only a sense of impending doom as the number of blocks available continually marches toward zero.
2. It is very challenging for newcomers, who tend to give up before they begin to appreciate the depths of game play possibilities that the game offers.

Combined, these two flaws made the game unappealing to all but a small group of people.  Personally, I love the game, but I'm in a minority.  The changes made to Trio Match are designed to help alleviate the two problems above.

1. Levels have been introduced into the game play, with different things happening at each level.  In addition, bonus blocks are awarded at the end of a level, leading players to think, "If only I can get to the next level, I'll be able to keep going longer..."
2. In the first two levels, extra shapes have been added, which makes it much easier for players to get matches of "all different" attributes.  This allows players to have a sense of success and accomplishment as it gradually becomes harder.

Please give both games a try, and give your feedback about what you do and don't like about the game play!

The Problem Site has been 12 years in the making.  Twelve years of gradual building, one block upon another.  Sometimes with careful intent, but sometimes haphazardly.  The result is a conglomeration of math problems, games, puzzles, riddles, resources, and quizzes that have baffled and delighted students and adults for years.

In the past few years we've been growing numerically.  The number of visitors who visit The Problem Site each day is getting larger and larger all the time. 

We're outgrowing our twelve-year old technology! :(

We recently acquired a more sophisticated server to host the site, but along with the more powerful server, it's time to leave behind the technology we started with all those years ago.  What does that mean?

It means starting from scratch.  Every page, every game, built from the ground up all over again.  It took 12 years to get the site to this point - how long do you suppose it'll take to finish rebuilding?

Hopefully not nearly as long!

As we rebuild games and resources, we'll post information about them here, so you'll know which games are available to try out.

We're starting off with these five games: Secret Word, Picture Word, Trio Match, Last Candle, and Matchstick Shuffle.  All five are available to play, but are subject to change as we continue improvements!