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.

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🧠 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.

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🧱 Building the Game – Step by Step

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

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🔹 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'}
}

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🔹 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

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🔹 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

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🔹 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

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🔹 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.”

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🧪 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.

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🧰 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!

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🎓 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.

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📅 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.

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🧩 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"

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💡 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.")

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🧪 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", "")

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🧠 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"

Day 5 – Crystals in the Kitchen

 

Day 5 – Crystals in the Kitchen

Blog Title: The Crystal World – From Sugar to Salt Under the Microscope

Take a peek at:

• Salt crystals (table salt vs rock salt)

• Sugar (white, brown, icing)

• Epsom salts or citric acid (used in bath bombs)

• Coffee, cocoa, or spices

Bonus: Dissolve and recrystallise sugar or salt and examine the new shapes.

🧂 Biology Blog – The Magic of Microscopes

Day 5: The Crystal World – From Sugar to Salt Under the Microscope

Crystals are all around us—in the kitchen, in our food, even in the bath. But most of the time, we don’t even notice them. Today, we’re zooming in on everyday crystals like sugar and salt to reveal their dazzling geometric beauty.

You don’t need a lab or fancy equipment—just your microscope, a bright light, and a few kitchen staples. Time to discover the hidden order of the crystal world.

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🔍 What You’ll Need

• A low-power or digital microscope

• A slide and coverslip (or a clear tray)

• A selection of crystals:

  • Table salt (sodium chloride)

  • Rock salt

  • Granulated sugar

  • Brown sugar

  • Icing sugar

  • Epsom salts or citric acid (optional)

Tip: For best results, examine both dry and dissolved/recrystallised versions.

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🧊 What Are Crystals, Anyway?

Crystals are solids with a regular, repeating internal structure. This means atoms and molecules are arranged in a precise, orderly pattern—something you can often see under a microscope.

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🔬 What to Look For

🧂 Table Salt

• Sharp, cube-shaped crystals

• Often stacked together or appearing like tiny dice

• Under light, they reflect in sharp, bright glints

🍚 Granulated Sugar

• More irregular shapes, but still angular

• Larger and more transparent than salt

• Sparkle under directional light

🍯 Brown Sugar

• Coated in molasses, so often appears clumped or duller

• Crystals still visible, though more rounded

• Interesting texture contrast compared to white sugar

❄️ Icing Sugar

• Finely ground—looks almost dust-like

• Under magnification, you’ll see tiny fractured shapes

• A good comparison for understanding scale

🛁 Epsom Salts

• Often needle-like or shard-shaped

• Different structure than salt or sugar—more elongated

• Used in bath bombs and science demos

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🧪 Make Your Own Crystals

Try this experiment:

1. Dissolve salt or sugar in warm water until saturated.

2. Leave the solution in a shallow dish to evaporate over a few days.

3. Examine the new crystals you’ve grown under the microscope.
   You’ll see larger, cleaner crystals with beautiful symmetry.

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📸 Photo Tips

• Place dry crystals on black card under a clear slide

• Use side lighting to highlight edges

• Try polarised filters for dramatic colour effects (especially with Epsom salts)

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👨‍🔬 Microscope Log Challenge

Create a comparison table:

Crystal Type	Shape	Colour	Transparency	Notes
Table Salt	Cube	White	Opaque	Very regular
Sugar	Irregular	Clearish	Translucent	Bigger crystals
Epsom Salt	Needle	White	Opaque	Long and jagged

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🧵 Tweet Teaser

Kitchen chemistry under the microscope? Yes please! 🧂🔍
From cube-like salt to sparkling sugar and needle-like Epsom crystals, it’s a mini world of geometry and glitter. #MicroscopeMadness #CrystalsUpClose

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Crystals combine chemistry and beauty in the best way. Tomorrow we’re getting a little hairier—Hair, Fur and Fibres awaits!

Ice Cream Chemistry

 The real reason ice cream is soft? Chemistry is chilling out.

🍦 Ice Cream Chemistry – Emulsions, Freezing Points, and Flavour Science

Summer is the season of sunshine, swimming pools… and ice cream. But while most people are busy enjoying the sweet, creamy results, we’re digging into what’s really going on inside that cone.

Because behind every scoop of vanilla or swirl of raspberry ripple is a mouthful of chemistry — and a surprisingly complex one at that.

Let’s unravel the science behind the treat we all scream for.

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🧪 1. Emulsions – Oil and Water Can Mix (Sort Of)

Ice cream is a colloidal emulsion, a mixture of fat droplets (from cream or milk) suspended in water (mostly from milk, plus added water and sugar). Normally, oil and water don’t mix — but ice cream is a marvel of modern emulsion engineering.

What holds it all together?

• Emulsifiers like lecithin (from egg yolks) or mono- and diglycerides break down surface tension and help fat and water combine

• Stabilisers like guar gum or carrageenan keep the emulsion stable and stop ice crystals forming too quickly

Without emulsifiers, you’d get a grainy, separated mess. With them, you get that smooth, creamy texture we love.

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❄️ 2. Freezing Point Depression – Sugar is More Than Sweet

When you add sugar to a liquid, it lowers its freezing point. That’s why ice cream doesn’t freeze solid like an ice cube — even in a very cold freezer.

This is thanks to colligative properties — the more solute particles (sugar, salt, etc.) in a solution, the lower the freezing point.

🍧 That’s also why salt is spread on icy roads — it melts ice by lowering the freezing point of water.

In ice cream:

• Lower freezing point = softer texture

• Balancing sugar is key — too much and the mix won’t freeze properly

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🫧 3. Microbubbles – Why Air Makes It Creamy

You might be surprised to learn that ice cream contains a lot of air – typically between 30–50% of its volume. This air is whipped in during churning and stabilised by fats and proteins.

The air:

• Increases volume (known as overrun)

• Improves texture

• Prevents the ice cream from becoming too dense

Too little air and your ice cream is rock-solid.
Too much air and it tastes like frozen foam.
The sweet spot is where chemistry and food science align.

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🌈 4. Flavour Chemistry – The Science of Sweet Satisfaction

Flavour perception isn’t just about taste — it’s also about temperature, texture, and volatile compounds that release as ice cream melts.

Some fun facts:

• Vanillin (from vanilla) is one of the most studied flavour compounds

• Menthol gives mint that cool sensation — it triggers cold receptors in your mouth

• Fruit flavours often come from esters, which are volatile and aromatic (e.g., ethyl butanoate = pineapple scent)

And why does melted ice cream taste sweeter? Because warmer temperatures release more aroma molecules and stimulate your sweet receptors more.

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🧫 5. The Crystal Battle – Keeping It Smooth

Ice crystals are the enemy of smooth ice cream. If the freezing process is too slow, large crystals form, leading to a crunchy or icy texture.

Chemists and food scientists use:

• Rapid freezing (liquid nitrogen or industrial blast freezing)

• Emulsifiers and stabilisers to keep small crystals small

• Controlled temperature storage to prevent re-freezing cycles

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🧠 Classroom to Cone – Why This Matters

For GCSE and A-Level Chemistry students, ice cream offers a delicious entry point into:

• Colloids and emulsions

• Freezing point depression

• Mixtures and solubility

• Phase changes and states of matter

• Molecular gastronomy!

You can even design your own classroom investigation:

How does changing sugar concentration affect the freezing point and texture of ice cream?

Or try:

Does the type of emulsifier change how smooth the ice cream feels?

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🎓 Where We Take It Further

At Philip M Russell Ltd, we don’t just teach chemistry – we demonstrate it in delicious, memorable ways. Whether it’s analysing molecular structures or churning our own ice cream in a lesson (yes, we’ve done it!), science comes to life.

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🍨 Want to make chemistry more engaging?
Book 1:1 GCSE and A-Level lessons with us in our lab, classroom or online studio.

📅 Now enrolling for September
🔗 www.philipmrussell.co.uk