String Up Steve

String Up Steve is an outrageously animated take on the classic word game Hangman, written by Jeff Strobel and released in 1991. The object is to guess the hidden word by selecting letters before a wrong guess strings poor Steve up rung by rung. Version 2.0 ships with an internal dictionary of more than 10,000 words.

Gameplay

Players pick letters from a tray at the bottom of the screen. Correct guesses reveal positions in the puzzle; wrong guesses add another stage to Steve's increasingly grim animation, with the round ending if the figure is completed before the word is solved.

Animation and Personality

The game leans on cartoonish black-and-white animation that gives Steve plenty of expression as the noose tightens. The slapstick presentation is what set the title apart from the many other hangman clones circulating on the early-1990s Macintosh shareware scene.

Word List

An internal dictionary of over ten thousand words keeps replays varied without requiring the player to type in puzzles manually, though longer sessions will eventually surface repeats.

System Notes

The release targets early-1990s black-and-white compact Macs and runs comfortably under System 6 and 7. It is distributed as classic Mac shareware.