Hangman 1.3 is not a bad game, if you like winning, which is the crux of the disagreement between my daughter and I. Hangman 1.3 allows you 11 guesses before you go to your doom, because you build the gallows and then your stick figure before you meet your maker. In many cases, this means you have to try pretty hard to lose: I won several of my games easily just by pressing the keys in order, starting with the letter Q. (Note that, in the App Store, JamSoft spells the name of the game "Hangman." with a period stuck at the end of the title; this seemingly superfluous punctuation is either done with an eye toward pushing JamSoft's game to the top of the list when you or to distinguish it from the many similarly named apps.)

Guess Again: When you play JamSoft's Hangman, you build a gallows in addition to the stick figure man, providing way too many chances for the game to be challenging.JamSoft's offering also suffers in comparison to the other two games I reviewed in that it doesn't offer word definitions, nor does it offer choices in difficulty. You can select from an eclectic selection of 10-word lists (among them "Disney Movie Titles" and "Chemical Elements" in addition to "Nouns" and "Verbs"). You can also play in single or two-player mode. I can recommend this only as a game for beginners; others will find it too easy, and without definitions, not even a bit enriching.

All three games are compatible with both the iPhone and iPod touch. MobilityWare's Hangman and Hangman Sim run on the iPhone 2.x software update; JamSoft's Hangman requires the iPhone 2.1 update.

[Jeff Merron is a freelance writer and editor living in North Carolina.]