AI Game Cards

Word games for ChatGPT & Claude

Updated

Word games for your AI chat: name hidden words from clues, spot the real definition, or play hangman with a snowman. Free, no signup. Each game is a ready-to-play prompt (we call it a game card) that you open in your own AI assistant.

A word game with an AI needs a target that cannot move. On these cards the hidden words, or the one true definition, are written into a file before release and a fingerprint of those answers (a SHA-256 hash) is published, so the assistant scores your guesses against an answer it cannot change after the fact.

New to AI games? Start with this guide: The best games to play with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

GameWhat it isPlayersLengthRated
The Word-Hoard A sealed word-guessing game: five hidden words, six fixed clues each, and an AI that can only read them out. 1 10–20 min All ages
The Counterfeit Lexicon A bluffing word game: seven obscure words, three definitions each, and the true one sealed before you play. 1 10–15 min All ages
Slow Thaw: Hangman Without the Gallows An AI hangman game for kids: eight words sealed before you guess, and a snowman instead of a gallows. 1+ 20–30 min All ages

These games keep their answers in a sealed file on this site, so play them in a chat that can open links, such as ChatGPT or Claude.

Word Games № 016 The Word-Hoard 1 player10–20 min Word Games № 017 The Counterfeit Lexicon 1 player10–15 min Word Games № 032 Slow Thaw: Hangman Without the Gallows 1+ players20–30 min

Can an AI score a word game fairly?

Word games with an assistant fail in a particular way: it grades generously. A near-miss becomes a hit because it can see what you meant, and a definition you invented passes because it sounds plausible. Without a fixed target the score means nothing.

All three cards fix the answers first. The Word-Hoard seals five words, each behind a ladder of six clues; The Counterfeit Lexicon seals which of three definitions is the real one for each of seven words; Slow Thaw seals eight hangman words. The bluffing game depends on it most: if the true definition were not chosen in advance, it would be whichever one you did not pick.

The Counterfeit Lexicon's fake definitions are written in the same flat dictionary style as the real ones, so formatting gives nothing away, and The Word-Hoard keeps each word's definition back until the fourth clue. Both are in their second edition, and the first edition's answers still verify at /verify/.

Questions about word games

Can I play hangman with ChatGPT?

Not reliably in a plain chat. A 2026 paper, LLMs Can't Play Hangman (arXiv 2601.06973), proves that an AI working only from the visible conversation cannot keep a word both hidden and fixed: it has nowhere private to keep it, so it fits its answers to your guesses. Slow Thaw seals all eight words before your first guess, spelled out letter by letter, and the card tells the AI to look each letter up. Each wrong letter thaws one part of a snowman, and if you think a letter was ruled wrongly, say "check again" and the host re-checks your guesses against the sealed file.

How long is a game?

The Counterfeit Lexicon takes 10 to 15 minutes and The Word-Hoard 10 to 20, both for one player, which makes them two of the shortest cards in the library. Slow Thaw takes 20 to 30 minutes for eight words and plays as one team: a child, a family, or a class with the teacher typing. All three are rated for all ages, and each can be saved partway through.

Do I need a large vocabulary?

It helps, but it is not the whole game. The Counterfeit Lexicon is about how a definition is written: real dictionary entries have a flatness that invented ones rarely copy well. The Word-Hoard's words are real English nouns and adjectives, with no names or phrases, and the skill is naming one early from an oblique clue. Slow Thaw's words are familiar ones, spelled the same in US and UK English.

If you like word games