This puzzle is part of the Monthly Topic Challenge #3: Pencil and Paper Games
I'm a bit unsure who to ask about this...
You see, there's this guy I know. I say 'know' - we're not close mates, come from entirely different walks of life really. It's more that - for some reason I still don't fully understand - he seems to trust me, value my opinion... Because over the last ten years, he's contacted me several times when he's been going through some kind of personal difficulties - crisis of faith, relationship problems... that kind of thing. Except he doesn't tell me exactly what the problem is. No, it seems this guy has decided that the way to help him cope with his troubles is to play a game...
So each time, he gets in touch, we exchange correspondence, have a bit of back-and-forth, he invites me over after work, then we both drink rather too much and have a game of hangman - you know, the paper-and-pencil game? He chooses a secret word and I have to guess the letters from it. And I know everyone has their own slightly different way of drawing the gallows, etc., but in this guy's rules you effectively got ten chances to be wrong, and on the eleventh that was it - game over*. Sometimes he won, sometimes I won, and no matter what the outcome he'd thank me for helping him clear his head, said I'd "made his mind up for him", and then at the end of the night he'd send me on my way with a little something for my trouble, and I'd try to stagger home but always wake up in a ditch the next morning with a terrible hangover, very little recollection of the night before, and covered in goodness-knows-what. Happy days...
Well, the other day I received an initial message from him inviting me over for another game, but the strange thing is: since then I haven't heard a peep out of him. He's gone all cold, like - isn't answering my replies asking him when we should be meeting. I'm worried something might have happened to him.
For some reason I've kept all the old games of hangman we've played. I'm wondering if there might be some clues here to help me work out what's happened this time. Only thing is, because he likes his secrecy we always play in a code. Probably should have mentioned that sooner... Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a different symbol. Always the same code each time. Unfortunately, I don't have the key to hand. And I can't actually remember what the solutions were - like I say, we always drink A LOT while playing - only that I'm sure there was some kind of theme to them. I just wish I could recall what it was...
Can you help me? It might help you to know that I always play a particular strategy to my first guesses - one that a lot of players of the game use. And then I have another strategy for the next few guesses that I often resort to using... After that, it's just sensible guesswork.
I really hope he's okay.
TASK: Describe the narrator's hangman-solving strategy, deduce the five solutions to the previous games, and thus the identity of the 'guy' who instigates the games. What's happened this time?
* Note from OP: This is the rule-set I always played when I was a kid: Five lines for the gallows (including the little strut to support the top-beam), then head, body, two legs, two arms. I know other people might use more or fewer lines in their construction, or do the arms before the legs, even sometimes adding feet or facial features if they want to give more chances (or extra struts at the bottom of the gallows if they value decent carpentry techniques and structures built to last...). In any case, I've stuck with what I know :)