Probe

Probe is an old (1964) Parker Brothers Game that is a kind of four player Hangman with various ornaments hung on it. What separates it from Hangman:

1. You can include "blanks" at the front and back of your word, to make things more difficult for your opponents.
2. It is up to four players, and on your turn, you can guess a letter from any of them. 
3. The slots you put your letters into have different point values, and you get points each time you guess a letter correctly. 
4. On each turn, you first draw an "activity card" which activates various random events "deduct 10 from your score", "opponent to your right exposes a letter", "add 25 to your score", "take an additional turn", etc. 
5. After your word has been guessed, you can continue to play and earn points. 

It would seem that Probe is trying to draft off the success of Scrabble "The 384 cards in this game provide more combinations of letters than any other word game." 

Our playing experience was kind of "meh." The drawn cards are kind of irritating, and much of the game is spent trying to remember what letters have already been guessed for each player... and you feel kind of dumb if you reguess one that you didn't remember. It also involves no new skill that Hangman didn't already have. Rounds are relatively short, and setup is kind of a hassle... so, in all, it wasn't something any of us wanted to play again. But if you *love* hangman, this is an interesting four player twist.