Freeverse's iPhone interactive story hangman game Hanged out

Last week, we were chewing the cud over Freeverse's then forthcoming, now released game Hanged.

An interesting take on interactive storytelling, it also mixes the gameplay of word guessing game hangman with the story of the tumultuous relationship of two mysterious lovers.

This plays out as you have to guess the individual words that make up a letter between the two.

Apparently, you have to uncover the secret of their sordid history and help decide their fate, although so far I've only got to "Darling, love humbles stone..." so presumably I've got some way to go yet.

Completing the gothic atmosphere is stop motion character animation from artist Patrick Dorian, which is used to illustrate each hangman game as you guess each letter.

Of course, considering the interactive story element, if your Romeo does gets hanged by his Juliet over a word, you just start again, guessing the same word.

To that extent, the plot is more important than being good at hangman.

Equally, the hanging theme was considered scary enough that the game was originally rejected with its 12+ age rating, although we note that Apple's approval panel seems to have relented as it still age rated 12+.