Index
Contents for Hitchin' Post! Help

Object of the game

How to start or finish playing

How to guess a letter

How to set the word length

How to change the sound and view of the hanging

How to give up without hanging the person

How to reset the score


ObjectOfTheGame
Object of the game:

Hitchin' Post! is a word game in which you must find a secret word by guessing one letter at a time.  You're not alone in your desire to guess the secret word, someone's life hangs in the balance!

The large question marks will show you how many letters are in the secret word.

When you correctly guess a letter which is in the secret word, that letter will replace one or more question marks, at the position at which the letter appears within the secret word.

You spare the person if you guess all the letters of the secret word before you make 7 wrong guesses.

Each time you guess a letter which is NOT in the secret word, a body part is added to the person who is standing on the gallows. After the 6th wrong guess,  he is complete, and is waiting to see if you can guess the secret word, saving him from a terrible fate.

If you don't want to see a hanging when you lose:

If you would prefer to not see the actual hanging if you lose the game, then before starting a new game, from the menu bar, select Options > Preferences, and then in the box labelled  Graphical Gore Level, select the button marked "None, no hanging".


StartFinish
How to start or finish playing:

How to start a new game:

After you win or lose, or just give up (that's why there is a Give Up key), to start a new game,  click on the New key at the bottom left, or, from the menu bar, select Game >  New

How to quit playing:

From the menu bar, select Game > Exit.  A new dialog box will appear, so you can confirm your intention to quit playing or change your mind, and continue playing.


Guess
How to guess a letter

Use the mouse to point at a letter in the keyboard window, and click to select that letter.

If the letter you guess is in the secret word, then it will appear in place of one or more question marks in the secret word.

If the letter you guess is not in the secret word, then a new body part will be added to the person on the gallows, and the incorrect letter will be shown in the list of wrong letters, which appears on the left side, under the keyboard window.

In any case, in the keyboard window, the letters you guess change color, so that you can more easily see the letters which remain.

If your computer has a sound card, you will hear each letter pronounced as it is selected.  If you would prefer to NOT hear each letter pronounced (so your co-workers won't know what you are doing), then from the menu bar, select Options > Preferences  and, in the dialog box labelled  Sounds during play, click the box labelled "Say all letters".  This will remove the check mark next to the label.  No check mark means no sound; a check mark present means the letters will be pronounced.  After making the change, click on the "OK" button to return to the game.


WordLength
How to set the word length

You can set the length of the secret words to 5, 6, 7, or 8 letters.

From the menu bar, select  Options > Word Length.

The current setting is shown by a check mark.

Click the mouse pointer on the word length you want for the secret words.

If you click on  Random, then the word length will be changed randomly for each new game.

Note that "random" does NOT mean that the word length will CHANGE with each new game, as there is a 25% chance that it will remain the same from one game to the next.


Sound
How to change the sound and view of the hanging

Use the Options > Preferences menu to see how you can select among various choices concerning the way the hanging sounds and the view of the hanging are depicted, in case you are not successful in trying to guess the secret word.

The box labelled Graphical Gore Level contains 4 possibilities for the view of the hanging.  Click on the one you want, so that a dot appears in the box to the left of your choice.  The box labelled Hangin' sounds contains 4 possibilities for the sound of the hanging.  Click on the one you want, so that a dot appears in the box to the left of your choice.


GiveUp
How to give up without hanging the person

You may decide to give up if you don't think you can solve a secret word, but you don't want to hang the person.  Just click on the  Give Up key!

A dialog box will appear, so you can confirm that this is what you want to do.

You will then see the secret word revealed, and, even though it counts as a loss on the scoreboard, no hanging takes place.

Next, click on the  New key to start the next game.


ResetScore
How to reset the score

There is a scoreboard at the bottom right, which will show the number of times you correctly guessed the secret word, and the total number of games played.

If you want to reset the score to show 0 games played, you can click on the R key in the scoreboard, or, from the menu bar, select  Game > Reset Score.

In either case, first a dialog box will appear with the question, "Are you sure you want to reset the score?", so you can proceed or change your mind without resetting the score.