26 — Adventure — a small text game

A text adventure describes a place and asks what you do next. Everything from the earlier guides comes together here: ask reads your choices, if/elif/ else routes them, a list is your inventory, and use random lets dice decide a risky room. The whole game fits in one .nme file.

#Steps

1. Save the whole game in one file, adventure.nme:

   # A small text adventure: walk through a cave and find the gold.
   # Run: nme r adventure
   
   use random latest
   
   inventory = []
   
   show "You wake up in a dark cave. A single torch flickers."
   
   while True:
       ask action, "What now? (look, east, dice, quit) "
       if action == "quit":
           show "You leave the cave. Goodbye!"
           break
       elif action == "look":
           show "Entrance cave: damp stone and a tunnel leading east."
           if "torch" not in inventory:
               show "You take the torch from the wall."
               inventory.append("torch")
           else:
               show "The walls are bare and quiet."
       elif action == "east":
           show "You follow the tunnel into a stone room."
           if "key" not in inventory:
               show "A rusty key lies on a shelf. You take it."
               inventory.append("key")
           else:
               show "The shelf is empty now."
           show "A locked door blocks the north wall. A passage goes west."
           ask move, "Go north, west, or back? "
           if move == "north":
               if "key" in inventory and "rope" in inventory:
                   show "The key turns in the lock. The door opens!"
                   show "Beyond it: a chest full of gold. You win!"
                   show f"You collected: {inventory}"
                   break
               else:
                   show "The door is locked. The key and the rope are needed."
           elif move == "west":
               show "The passage opens into a small river room."
               if "rope" not in inventory:
                   show "A coil of rope lies by the water. You take it."
                   inventory.append("rope")
               else:
                   show "You already have the rope."
               roll = random_number(1, 6)
               show f"You try to cross the stream. Dice roll: {roll}."
               if roll >= 4:
                   show "You splash across safely and find a coin."
                   inventory.append("coin")
               else:
                   show "The water is too deep. You turn back, dry."
           else:
               show "You step back to the entrance cave."
       elif action == "dice":
           roll = random_number(1, 6)
           show f"The dice tumble: {roll}."
           if roll >= 4:
               show "Lucky! A coin shines in the dust. You pocket it."
               inventory.append("coin")
           else:
               show "Nothing happens. The cave stays quiet."
       else:
           show "I do not understand. Try look, east, dice, or quit."
   

   copyrun it →

2. Run it. The piped input plays one whole game: go east, try the locked door, go east again, take the rope, roll the dice, then come back and open the door:

   printf 'east\nnorth\neast\nwest\ndice\neast\nnorth\n' | nme r adventure
   

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   You wake up in a dark cave. A single torch flickers.
   What now? (look, east, dice, quit) You follow the tunnel into a stone room.
   A rusty key lies on a shelf. You take it.
   A locked door blocks the north wall. A passage goes west.
   Go north, west, or back? The door is locked. The key and the rope are needed.
   What now? (look, east, dice, quit) You follow the tunnel into a stone room.
   The shelf is empty now.
   A locked door blocks the north wall. A passage goes west.
   Go north, west, or back? The passage opens into a small river room.
   A coil of rope lies by the water. You take it.
   You try to cross the stream. Dice roll: 1.
   The water is too deep. You turn back, dry.
   What now? (look, east, dice, quit) The dice tumble: 6.
   Lucky! A coin shines in the dust. You pocket it.
   What now? (look, east, dice, quit) You follow the tunnel into a stone room.
   The shelf is empty now.
   A locked door blocks the north wall. A passage goes west.
   Go north, west, or back? The key turns in the lock. The door opens!
   Beyond it: a chest full of gold. You win!
   You collected: ['key', 'rope', 'coin']
   

   copy

   The two dice lines are random — your run will show different rolls.

3. The game world is one endless loop with a small menu, exactly like the terminal menu from 22. while True: never stops by itself, so the only way out of a room is answering quit or winning:

   while True:
       ask action, "What now? (look, east, dice, quit) "
       if action == "quit":
           show "You leave the cave. Goodbye!"
           break
       elif action == "east":
           show "You follow the tunnel into a stone room."
           ask move, "Go north, west, or back? "
           if move == "north":
               show "You open the door."
           elif move == "west":
               show "You find the river room."
           else:
               show "You step back to the entrance cave."
   

   copyrun it →

   Each ask stores an answer, and the if chain picks one branch. The inner ask move gives the stone room its own small menu.

4. The inventory is a list. inventory.append("key") adds an item, and the check "key" not in inventory makes sure you can take an item only once:

   inventory = []
   if "key" not in inventory:
       inventory.append("key")
       show "You take the key."
   

   copyrun it →

   show f"You collected: {inventory}" prints the whole list on the winning line.

5. Dice decide risky rooms. use random latest loads random_number(a, b), which rolls between a and b, and if roll >= 4 splits success from failure:

   use random latest
   roll = random_number(1, 6)
   show f"The dice tumble: {roll}."
   if roll >= 4:
       show "Lucky! You find a coin."
       inventory.append("coin")
   else:
       show "Nothing happens."
   

   copyrun it →

   Because the roll is random, no two games play the same — that is the point of a dice encounter.

6. The win condition combines two collected items. and joins the checks from guide 09: the door opens only when both the key and the rope are in the inventory, and then break leaves the loop:

   while True:
       ask move, "Go north, west, or back? "
       if move == "north":
           if "key" in inventory and "rope" in inventory:
               show "The key turns in the lock. The door opens!"
               show f"You collected: {inventory}"
               break
           else:
               show "The door is locked. The key and the rope are needed."
       else:
           break
   

   copyrun it →

   The Korean twin adventure.ko.nme writes the same game with 랜덤 사용 최신, 물어봐, 보여줘, and 랜덤정수(1, 6); the answers east/north/ west stay the same, so the same piped input wins in both languages.

#Try it yourself

Add a fourth direction: give the river room a south choice that leads to a new "echo cave" with its own item, then make the winning door require that item too. Add the choice to the menu line and a new elif action == "south": branch.

#What you learned

• A loop with an ask menu turns text into a small game world.
• A list is an inventory: append collects, in/not in checks.
• use random makes a dice encounter that differs on every run.
• The win condition joins items with and and leaves the loop with break.