Guess the Author — Hangman with famous writers

Guess the Author is our hangman-style game at /guess-the-author. You're shown a blanked-out author's name and have to reveal it one letter at a time. Unlike WordCraft, you can play as many authors as you want in a single session.

How to play

1. Land on the page. You'll see a row of underscores (one per letter in the hidden author's name) and a QWERTY keyboard underneath.
2. Click any letter — or just type it on your physical keyboard.
3. If the letter is in the name, it fills into every matching position. The button turns green.
4. If the letter is not in the name, the button turns red, you lose one heart (life), and a new hint appears below the name.
5. Keep guessing. Reveal every letter before your 6 hearts run out to win.

Lives and hints

You start with 6 hearts. Each wrong letter costs you one heart and unlocks one progressively more generous hint, in this order:

1. Genre — what the author mainly writes (e.g., Gothic fiction, magical realism)
2. Nationality — where they're from
3. Era — which period they wrote in
4. Famous Work — their best-known book or play
5. Clue — a final fun fact about them

Use your early wrong guesses strategically — missing on common letters early means you unlock hints sooner. If you go 6 wrong without finishing the name, the game ends, the full name is revealed, and you see the author's fun fact.

Winning and losing

• Win: "You got it!" message, the complete name and fun fact are shown, and your win streak goes up by 1.
• Lose: "Not this time!" message, the full name is revealed with the fun fact, and your streak resets to 0.

Either way, a Next Author → button appears so you can jump straight into another round.

Your stats

The header of the game page shows three personal stats:

• W — total wins
• L — total losses
• Streak — your current unbroken win streak (only shown if > 0)

There's no global leaderboard for Guess the Author — just your personal record.

Unlimited play

Unlike WordCraft, you can play as many authors as you want in one sitting. Click "Next Author" to load a new unplayed one. We have 140+ famous writers in rotation — novelists, playwrights, poets, essayists — so you're unlikely to run out any time soon.

Tips

• Start with vowels (A, E, I, O, U) — they appear in most names.
• Then try common consonants (R, S, T, L, N).
• The "Genre" hint is usually the most useful — it narrows the field dramatically if you know your literary periods.
• You can use your keyboard instead of clicking — much faster once you get into a rhythm.