Hemel Hempstead Private Tuition: Summer-themed text adventure

No homework? Perfect time to code your own summer-themed text adventure.

🎮 Gaming in Python – Creating a Summer Holiday Adventure

Summer holidays are the perfect time to learn something new — and what better way to build skills and have fun than by creating your own text-based adventure game in Python?

Forget mindlessly playing games — this is about designing, coding, and thinking creatively. It’s not just coding, it’s storytelling, logic, data handling, and project management rolled into one.

Welcome to the world of Python adventure games.

🧠 Why Text-Based Games?

Before Fortnite, before Minecraft, there was Zork, Adventureland, and The Hobbit — games that ran purely on text. You typed commands like go north, open door, or use key, and the story responded.

These games:

Require no graphics (perfect for beginners)
Let you focus on coding logic and structure
Encourage creativity and problem-solving
Help students build confidence in Python

Bonus: they’re wildly nostalgic for teachers and surprisingly addictive for students.

🧱 Building the Game – Step by Step

Here’s how we structure the project during tuition or workshops:

🔹 1. Map Your World

Start with a map. Your game needs rooms, paths, and descriptions. Whether it’s a haunted mansion, a space station, or a tropical island, draw it out first.

Example:

Bedroom → Hallway → Library → Secret Passage → Dragon’s Lair

Teach students how to:

Create a dictionary of rooms
Link rooms via directions (north, east, etc.)

python
rooms = {
    'bedroom': {'desc': 'You are in a cosy bedroom.', 'east': 'hallway'},
    'hallway': {'desc': 'A long corridor with paintings.', 'west': 'bedroom', 'south': 'library'}
}

🔹 2. Add Movement Commands

Handle user input with simple logic:

python
command = input("> ").lower()
if command == "go east":
    current_room = rooms[current_room]['east']

Students learn:

Input handling
If/else control structures
String parsing

🔹 3. Add Objects and Inventory

Let players pick up items and solve puzzles:

Create lists for inventory
Add item interactions: keys that unlock doors, books with clues, potions that change things

python
inventory = []
items = {'library': 'ancient book'}

if command == "take book":
    inventory.append('ancient book')
    items['library'] = None

🔹 4. Add Conditions, Scores, and Endings

Make the game dynamic:

Use flags to track progress
Add a scoring system
Include multiple endings based on choices

🔹 5. Add a Dash of Humour

Encourage students to write fun, engaging descriptions. The creativity shines here – even those less confident with code can shine as storytellers.

“You step into the library. A dusty parrot eyes you suspiciously from the chandelier.”

🧪 The Learning Outcomes

This one project covers:

Data structures: dictionaries, lists
Control structures: if, while, loops
Functions and modular coding
Debugging and testing
User interface design
Creative writing and narrative design

Perfect for KS3 Computing, GCSE Computer Science, and even as a Year 12 refresher.

🧰 Going Further: Add Graphics and Sound

Once the text game is solid, we often challenge students to:

Add sound effects using pygame
Display images or maps
Convert to a clickable game with tkinter or a GUI

Our studio can even help students record voiceovers, soundtracks, and turn it into a playable web game — gaming meets filmmaking!

🎓 What We Offer

At Philip M Russell Ltd, we teach computing by making it real, engaging, and fun. From Python to Raspberry Pi to building your own PC, our lessons go beyond the curriculum.

Learn to code. Build a game. Tell a story.
One-to-one tuition in our classroom, studio or online.

📅 Sign up for GCSE/A-Level Computer Science tuition today
🔗 www.philipmrussell.co.uk
🎮 Because every coder starts with a game.

Here's a simple but expandable Python word parser that can be used for a text-based adventure game. This parser interprets the player's input like go north, take key, or look room and splits it into verb and noun (or direction/object). It’s the basis of how your game understands commands.

🧩 Basic Word Parser in Python

python
def parse_command(command):
    """
    Parses the user's input into a verb and noun.
    Returns a tuple: (verb, noun)
    """
    command = command.lower().strip()  # Make lowercase and remove whitespace
    words = command.split()

    if len(words) == 0:
        return ("", "")  # Empty command
    elif len(words) == 1:
        return (words[0], "")  # e.g., "inventory"
    else:
        return (words[0], " ".join(words[1:]))  # e.g., "take golden key"

💡 How to Use It in the Game

Here’s an example of how this fits into the game loop:

python
while True:
    command = input("> ")
    verb, noun = parse_command(command)

    if verb == "go":
        if noun in rooms[current_room]:
            current_room = rooms[current_room][noun]
            print(f"You move {noun} to the {current_room}.")
        else:
            print("You can't go that way.")
    
    elif verb == "look":
        print(rooms[current_room]['desc'])
    
    elif verb == "take":
        if noun == items.get(current_room):
            inventory.append(noun)
            items[current_room] = None
            print(f"You picked up the {noun}.")
        else:
            print(f"There is no {noun} here.")
    
    elif verb == "inventory":
        print("You are carrying:", ", ".join(inventory) or "nothing.")
    
    elif verb in ("quit", "exit"):
        print("Goodbye adventurer.")
        break
    
    else:
        print("I don't understand that command.")

🧪 Example Use

markdown
> go north
> take lantern
> inventory
> look
> quit

The parse_command() function turns those into:

python
("go", "north")
("take", "lantern")
("inventory", "")
("look", "")
("quit", "")

🧠 Extensions You Can Add Later

Support for synonyms (e.g., “grab” = “take”, “exit” = “go out”)
Better error handling ("go tree" could say "that's not a valid direction")
Two-word verb support (e.g., "turn on torch")
Tokenisation to allow commands like "take the golden key"

26 July 2025

Summer-themed text adventure