A nice article on Hangman Strategies

Usually when I read articles about Hangman strategies I am annoyed at how thoughtless they are. But today I found one that was spot on. In fact, this article describes the exact algorithm I implemented in my Hanging with Friends Word Solver Cheat. The good news is my Hanging with Friends Word Solver Cheat implements this algorithm with each guess used to improve the suggestions at the next step.

So if you’re curious what my Hanging with Friends Word Solver Cheat does each time you use it, read this article here. A Better Strategy for Hangman

Scramble with Friends Cheaters Site Launch

I decided to try Zynga’s newest word game, Scramble with Friends. It was more addictive than I thought it would be. Of course my mind immediately went to figuring out how to win every time (aka cheating!). After some thought and hunting around the internets, I came up with an algorithm to find all the top words. But since Scramble with Friends is a timed game, it needed to be fast, and it needed to be user friendly. Check out what I came up with. It’s still getting better as time permits. The graphics need some work!

Scramble with Friends Cheaters

Have a Happy Hanging with Friends Holiday

I hope you get the Hanging with Friends letters you need!

Hanging with Friends

Android Hanging with Friends finally gets the coin store

Today Zynga has finally made good on its promise to bring the coin store (and a potential source of revenue for Zynga) to the Android version of Hanging with Friends. Now all my adroid loving friends can finally buy goofy avatars and funny shaped balloons. But since the avatars don’t give you any special power, I’m sure I’ll still drop you in the Hanging with Friends lava just as quickly.

I guess the new update also brought with it the new builder lifelines (Conjure and that other useless one) and the update Extinguish lifeline. Maybe I should get an android device to play with… nah–I’ll stick with my iPhone!

Enjoy!

Hanging with Friends Android Coin Store

Hard to Guess Hanging with Friends Words (8 Letters)

I analyzed all the words in the Hanging with Friends dictionary to determine which words I think are the hardest to guess. I included a rating of each word in my Hanging with Friends Word Builder. Most words are rated 0 since they can be easily guessed using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver with or without using a lifeline.

Here are the words I determined to be the hardest to guess. I’m posting them in separate posts based on word size.

Zynga gives you the last vowel for free AND only 4 strikes to guess the remaining 7 letters. In hangman, 8 letter words are often easy to guess since there are so many letters you can sometimes just get lucky and guess a correct letter and get another clue. But Zynga’s strike rule is extremely punitive for 8 letter words. As a result, 8 letter words are extremely difficult to guess, IF you can pick a good word like the ones below.

You’ll note that we finally see an appearance of my top score I give to a word. There are three words tied for the honors of hardest to guess Hanging with Friends words

So here are my top 14 Eight Letter Hanging with Friends words.

word Score***
fuddling 100
puzzling 100
vuggiest 100
buggiest 76
burriest 76
cuttling 76
huddling 76
puckered 76
ruddiest 76
rumpling 76
shammers 76
shudders 76
thumbing 76
trucking 76

** The Score column lists my own rating (out of 100) at how hard this word is to guess. I can’t tell you how I determined what that number is–it’s my own secret recipe but it involves some math! This isn’t the points you’d earn.You can’t cheat using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver to guess these words. You’ll have to be more clever.

 

Hanging with Friends iOS Update 4.12

Today Zynga rolled out a shiny new update to Hanging with Friends for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Android will probably have to keep waiting…). I just downloaded it to my iPhone 4S. I’m happy to report it hasn’t crashed yet, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the Hanging with Friends Facebook page to see if others start having problems.

So what’s new?

Zynga has updated the Extinguish lifeline, and I can only hope they have made it worth using. In Hanging with Friends, the Extinguish lifeline is available for use while trying to guess your opponent’s word. I don’t have much problem solving words very often thanks to my Hanging with Friends Word Solver. But every now and then someone picks a hard word, and I need help. The Extinguish lifeline is one I rarely use because it has historically been fairly useless. In the past it would remove 4 letters that are not in your word. In theory, this is supposed to help narrow down your word. In reality, it didn’t reliably extinguish letters that I would have considered picking anyway! It seemed that Extinguish would randomly pick 4 letters without really thinking about what would be helpful.

In the 4.12 update of Hanging with Friends, Zynga has changed the Extinguish lifeline to now remove 5 letters instead of 4. Now a 5th random letter would be just as likely to be as useless as 4 random letters. The exciting part is that Zynga now claims that the Extinguish lifeline is “smarter about what it takes out for you.” I haven’t even had a chance to try it out yet, but I have my fingers crossed that Extinguish becomes a useful tool in my Hanging with Friends aresenal. I’ll report back on how good I think it works later.

Zynga also claims to have improved the loading time and removed some bugs from Hanging with Friends. We will have to wait and see if they’ve added more bugs than they removed. Oh yeah, they also added some new features to the coin store to help you find ways to spend your coins on the balloons and characters. Even though I hover around 5k coins, I’ve yet to buy anything in the store. Maybe I should…

Hard to Guess Hanging with Friends Words (7 Letters)

I analyzed all the words in the Hanging with Friends dictionary to determine which words I think are the hardest to guess. I included a rating of each word in my Hanging with Friends Word Builder. Most words are rated 0 since they can be easily guessed using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver with or without using a lifeline.

Here are the words I determined to be the hardest to guess. I’m posting them in separate posts based on word size.

Zynga gives you the last vowel for free AND 5 strikes to guess the remaining 6 letters

So here are my top 12 Seven Letter Hanging with Friends words.

word Score***
bucking 96
jazzing 96
yucking 96
buzzing 81
ducking 81
fulling 81
huffing 81
jelling 81
mucking 81
waxwing 81
yeuking 81
yukking 81

** The Score column lists my own rating (out of 100) at how hard this word is to guess. I can’t tell you how I determined what that number is–it’s my own secret recipe but it involves some math! This isn’t the points you’d earn.You can’t cheat using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver to guess these words. You’ll have to be more clever.

 

Hard to Guess Hanging with Friends Words (6 Letters)

I analyzed all the words in the Hanging with Friends dictionary to determine which words I think are the hardest to guess. I included a rating of each word in my Hanging with Friends Word Builder. Most words are rated 0 since they can be easily guessed using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver with or without using a lifeline.

Here are the words I determined to be the hardest to guess. I’m posting them in separate posts based on word size.

Zynga gives you the last vowel for free AND 6 strikes to guess the remaining 5 letters

So here are my top 9 Six Letter Hanging with Friends words.

word Score***
waived 84
baking 70
buzzed 70
jazzed 70
jogged 70
joking 70
jugged 70
willed 70
yucked 70

 
** The Score column lists my own rating (out of 100) at how hard this word is to guess. I can’t tell you how I determined what that number is–it’s my own secret recipe but it involves some math! This isn’t the points you’d earn.You can’t cheat using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver to guess these words. You’ll have to be more clever.

 

Hard to Guess Hanging with Friends Words (5 Letters)

I analyzed all the words in the Hanging with Friends dictionary to determine which words I think are the hardest to guess. I included a rating of each word in my Hanging with Friends Word Builder. Most words are rated 0 since they can be easily guessed using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver with or without using a lifeline.

Here are the words I determined to be the hardest to guess. I’m posting them in separate posts based on word size.

Zynga gives you the last vowel for free AND 7 strikes to guess the remaining 4 letters

So here are my top 26 Five Letter Hanging with Friends words.

word Score***
fazes 82
baked 68
cited 68
japes 68
waves 68
yowes 68
zaxes 68
babes 55
bayed 55
coxes 55
faves 55
foxed 55
foxes 55
fykes 55
hajes 55
hazed 55
hiker 55
howes 55
jakes 55
jiver 55
joker 55
jokes 55
joyed 55
piped 55
waxes 55
wizes 55

You can’t cheat using my  Hanging with Friends Word Solver  to guess these words. You’ll have to be more clever.

** The Score column lists my own rating (out of 100) at how hard this word is to guess. I can’t tell you how I determined what that number is–it’s my own secret recipe but it involves some math! This isn’t the points you’d earn.

 

Hard to Guess Hanging with Friends Words (4 Letters)

I analyzed all the words in the Hanging with Friends dictionary to determine which words I think are the hardest to guess. I included a rating of each word in my Hanging with Friends Word Builder. Most words are rated 0 since they can be easily guessed using my Hanging with Friends Word Solver with or without using a lifeline.

Here are the words I determined to be the hardest to guess. I’m posting them in separate posts based on word size.

In hangman, 4 letter words are usually harder to guess than longer words. But since Zynga gives you the last vowel for free AND 8 strikes to guess the remaining 3 letters, they actually often become quite easy to guess. And of course you can always use 9 strikes with the Revive lifeline or narrow it more with the 4 Suspects lifeline.

So here are my top 12 Four Letter Hanging with Friends words.

word Score**
kafs 73
fyke 59
hawk 59
jake 59
jape 59
jars 59
joke 59
lacs 59
mice 59
mime 59
wave 59
wite 59

You can’t cheat using my  Hanging with Friends Word Solver  to guess these words. You’ll have to be more clever.

** The Score column lists my own rating (out of 100) at how hard this word is to guess. I can’t tell you how I determined what that number is–it’s my own secret recipe but it involves some math! This isn’t the points you’d earn.