Ever played a text adventure game? Well, it's a game where text is printed to the screen. The user is then asked to choose an option from a list to continue the game.
Guess what? It's very easy to make a text adventure in Python! Here's how.
Before creating a text adventure, it's very important that we create a layout for our game. Here's one example:
Start at a house
Go outside
Play outside
Go to the fridge
Eat pizza
Eat pizza
Eat beans
Eat beans
Look in the freezer
Eat ice cream
Watch TV
Go to work
Present something
Present something
Create something
Create something
Drink coffee
Drink coffee
Leave work
In the example above, the numbers show the story, and bullet points show choices.
Try to create a diagram that YOU can understand. After all, you're the one coding the game!
A text adventure is full of choices. Most of the time, you'll want the user to select from a limited amount of options. Instead of rewriting the code to print the question and answers constantly, you'll want to make a function to do it. Here's how to build an all-purpose, fail-safe function for that purpose.
We'll start out by creating an outline for our function.
def ask(question,answers):
# Print the question.
# Loop through answers and print "number: answer" for each one.
# Ask the user to enter the number of an option.
# Check that the user's response is valid.
# If the answer is valid, return it.
# Otherwise, ask the user again.
Then, we'll fill it in. Here's the completed code.
01 def ask(question,answers):
02 print(question)
03 for i in range(0,len(answers)):
04 print("%s: %s" %(i + 1,answers[i]))
05
06 while True:
07 number = input("Enter an option's number:")
08 try:
09 int(number,10)
10 except:
11 print("Please enter a positive whole number.")
12 continue
13
14 option = int(number,10)
15 if option < 1 or len(answers) < option: # -------------------------- Group 3
16 print("Please enter a number between 1 and %s." %(len(answers))) # Group 3
17 continue # ------------------------------------------------------- Group 3
18 else: # ------------------------------------------------------------ Group 3
19 return option # -------------------------------------------------- Group 3
That's a lot of code! Here's the explanation of each step:
Line 1 defines the ask function.
Line 2 prints the question.
Line 3 begins a for loop:
Line 4 prints each answer.
Line 6 defines a while loop that runs forever (or until a break command is placed):
Line 7 asks the user to enter an option's number.
Line 8 begins a try ... except block.
Line 9 attempts to turn the user's input into an integer.
If it produces an error, the except block (lines 10 - 12) is executed:
Line 11 gives the user a helpful message.
Line 12 goes to the beginning of the while loop.
If it doesn't produces an error, the code on lines 14 - 19 is run:
Line 14 changes the user's input into integer format.
Line 15 checks whether the user entered an integer in an acceptable range.
If the user did not enter a number in the correct range, lines 16 and 17 are run:
Line 16 gives the user a helpful error message.
Line 17 goes to the beginning of the while loop.
Otherwise, line 19 is run:
Line 19 returns the user's choice.
Next, let's learn how to create the rest of our text adventure.
A text adventure format looks something like this:
print(some text)
opt = ask(question,[answers])
if opt == 1:
repeat...
elif opt == 2:
repeat...
more code...
Let's create the first part of our text adventure. Here's our outline's first level:
Start at a house
Go outside
Go to the fridge
Watch TV
Go to work
Present something
Create something
Drink coffee
Leave work
Let's turn that into a text adventure. Remember, we've already defined our ask() function. Here's our code:
# Start at the house.
print("You are at your house.")
opt = ask("What do you do?",["Go outside","Go to the fridge","Watch TV"])
if opt == 1:
print("You go outside and run around.")
if opt == 2:
print("You go to the fridge.")
if opt == 3:
print("You watch TV.")
# Then go to work.
print("You are now at work.")
opt = ask("What do you do?",["Present something","Create something","Drink coffee"])
if opt == 1:
print("You present something to your company.")
if opt == 2:
print("You make something for your company.")
if opt == 3:
print("You drink coffee.")
# Then leave work.
print("You leave work.")
Let's learn how to create loops in text adventures.
Sometimes we want our text adventures to do something until something else happens. For example, you might want someone to stay at work if they drink coffee. One way to do this is by creating several levels (ex:
if opt == 1:
code...
if opt == 1:
code...
if opt == 1:
code...
). However, if you use that method, you have to assume that someone doesn't drink coffee, say, 10 times. If they do, they'll exit work. Here's a more foolproof method:
while True:
code...
if opt == 1:
code...
continue
elif opt == 2:
code...
break
In this code, if the user chooses option 1, some code will run, then they will be placed at the top of the while loop again, keeping them in until they choose option 2. Let's adjust our code to keep the user at work until they present/create something:
# Start at the house.
print("You are at your house.")
opt = ask("What do you do?",["Go outside","Go to the fridge","Watch TV"])
if opt == 1:
print("You go outside and run around.")
if opt == 2:
print("You go to the fridge.")
if opt == 3:
print("You watch TV.")
# Then go to work.
print("You are now at work.")
while True:
opt = ask("What do you do?",["Present something","Create something","Drink coffee"])
if opt == 1:
print("You present something to your company.")
break
if opt == 2:
print("You make something for your company.")
break
if opt == 3:
print("You drink coffee.")
continue # Keep the user at work until they do something else.
# Then leave work.
print("You leave work.")
What if we want to stop the user from drinking, say, more than 5 cups of coffee? What do we do? One way is to nest if blocks. Another way is to create a variable within a while loop. For example, look below:
# Then go to work.
cups = 0
print("You are now at work.")
while True:
opt = ask("What do you do?",["Present something","Create something","Drink coffee"])
if opt == 1:
print("You present something to your company.")
break
if opt == 2:
print("You make something for your company.")
break
if opt == 3:
print("You drink coffee.")
cups = cups + 1
if cups <= 5:
continue # Keep the user at work until they do something else or drink 5 cups.
else:
print("Ack! You drank too many cups of coffee! You leave work immediately.")
break
This code will have the user leave work once they drink five cups of coffee.
Even though that way was pretty easy, there's an even easier way to make a text adventure, using the Story.PY library. It's written for Python, and is super simple to learn. Check out the official guide about how to write code for it, the official editor, and the Trinket for it. Just change the adventure file to your Story.PY code, and hit Run! For example, compare our Python code above with the Story.PY code needed, and you'll notice it's a lot shorter.
