hangman is a paper-and-pencil guessing game played by two or more people. one player thinks of a word, phrase, or sentence, and the other players have to try and guess it. they do so by calling letters or numbers that they think are in the word. the word is shown as a row of dashes. if a guessing player gives a letter or number that is in the word, the other player writes the letter or number in the places that they are in the word. if the letter or number is not in the word, the other player draws a part of a hanged man stick figure as a tally mark (a form of numeral used for counting). the game ends when: