Hangman and accessible letter entry on NoCharge

Hangman is a classic example of a game whose state can become picture-only: a gallows drawing, a word under construction, and a graveyard of wrong letters. NoCharge’s version keeps the drawing but makes every state speakable, and it is honest about what that does and does not solve.

Two input paths, same loop

• Pointer/touch: tap a letter button.
• Keyboard: type any letter. The game intercepts A–Z keys, submits the guess, and leaves focus on that letter’s button, so a keyboard player never has to navigate a 26-button grid to make a second guess.

The engine accepts only single ASCII letters, then disables repeats — so a double-tap or a stray key cannot waste a miss.

State is announced, not implied

After every guess:

• The word row updates and is announced via aria-live: revealed letters plus blanks (_ E A).
• The status line says “Wrong guesses: 2 of 6 (B, C)”.
• The figure is aria-hidden; the text count is the source of truth.

Correct letters are styled differently from wrong ones, but the difference is also labeled (“in the word” / “not in the word”), so color is never the only cue.

Why the six-miss limit stays

A guesser with no limit would brute-force the alphabet. Six misses is the countdown, and the figure is simply its visual. What NoCharge removes is time pressure: there is no clock, no per-guess timer, and no score for speed.

Limits NoCharge states

The word lists are editorial: common, everyday words. They are not a vocabulary curriculum, and NoCharge does not claim Hangman teaches spelling or word recall. The guide’s “read the pattern aloud” tip is a heuristic, not an optimal strategy claim.

The definitive guide documents the exact theme lists and the storage keys; the game page documents the controls. If any of those disagree with the running game, the catalog review should catch it before the next release.