17 — Word guess: a hidden-word game

This is where Part 2 begins. Everything from Part 1 comes together into a game of guessing a hidden word in six tries. Lists, chance, loops and conditions all appear, and there is not one quote, bracket or equals sign in it.

#Steps

1. Pick the hidden word at random. Shuffle a list and take the first of it:

   set words to list of apple, grape, melon
   shuffle words
   set secret to the first of words
   

   copyrun it →

2. A word can be walked through letter by letter. for each letter in hands them over one at a time:

   set secret to apple
   for each letter in secret
       show letter
   end
   

   copyrun it →

3. Build the masked word. A letter already guessed stays; one still hidden becomes _. Collect them in a list and join it with spaces:

   set secret to apple
   set found to list of a
   set shown to an empty list
   for each letter in secret
       if found contains letter
           append letter to shown
       else
           append _ to shown
       end
   end
   show shown joined by space
   

   copyrun it →

   apple is a, p, p, l, e, and only a has been found, so it prints a _ _ _ _. Change the word and watch the mask follow it.

4. Winning is one question. If nothing is masked any more, it is all found:

   set shown to list of a, p
   if shown does not contain _
       show you got it
   end
   

   copyrun it →

5. Here is the whole game. Put it in word-guess.nme:

   set words to list of apple, grape, melon
   shuffle words
   set secret to the first of words
   set found to an empty list
   set lives to 6
   repeat forever
       set shown to an empty list
       for each letter in secret
           if found contains letter
               append letter to shown
           else
               append _ to shown
           end
       end
       show shown joined by space
       if shown does not contain _
           show you got it
           stop
       end
       if lives equals 0
           show out of guesses
           show secret
           stop
       end
       show lives
       ask letter Guess a letter
       if secret contains letter
           show yes
       else
           show no
           subtract 1 from lives
       end
       append letter to found
   end
   

   copyrun it →

#Try it yourself

Add more words to the list. Then stop a repeated guess from costing a life — one if found contains letter does it.

#What you learned

• Shuffling a list and taking the first of it is a random pick.
• for each letter in walks a word letter by letter.
• The masked word is a list you build and then join.
• does not contain asks whether you have won, in one line.
• The whole game has no quotes, no brackets and no equals sign.