Specification

Overview

Hangman is a popular word game in which one player (the “chooser”) chooses a secret word and another player (the “guesser”) attempts to guess the word one letter at a time. If a guessed letter appears in the word, all instances of it are revealed. If not, the guesser loses a chance. If the guesser figures out the secret word before he or she runs out of chances, he or she wins. If not, the player who chose the word wins. Traditionally, chances are tracked using a stick figure drawing of a person being hanged from a gallows. The figure is drawn one body part at a time, and the guesser loses when the entire figure has been drawn. This game is also the basis for the TV game show Wheel of Fortune.

Behavior

Gameplay

In our implementation of Hangman, the computer will take on the role of the “chooser” and the human player will be the “guesser.” The computer will secretly choose a word from a list (see below) and show the player how many letters are in the word by displaying a sequence of blanks (underscores). Then, the computer will begin asking for guesses. If the player guesses a letter that is in the secret word, all blanks representing an instance of that letter should be replaced by the letter. If the guessed letter is not in the word at all, the player should lose a chance and a new part of the Hangman figure should appear. If the player guesses a letter he or she has already guessed, he or she should not lose a chance, even if that letter is not in the word. If the player guesses all letters in the word, he or she wins. If the Hangman figure is completed, the player loses. In either case, the secret word should be revealed after the game is over.

You can download and run Mr. Wortzman’s version of the game here: Hangman.zip. Download the .zip file, extract, and run Hangman.exe from inside the folder.

Sprites

Your game will need to include at least three sprites: the Hangman itself, a “host” sprite that asks the player for a guess and informs him or her whether or not the guess is correct, and an “assistant” sprite that tells the player the status of the secret word. You may use more sprites if you think they are appropriate. The host and assistant should have clear roles and should never do each other’s job.

Word Status

As the game is played, the player should be shown the current guessed status of the secret word. Letters that have been correctly guessed should be shown in the correct locations. Unguessed letters will appear as blanks. At the beginning of the game, no letters will have been guessed, and the only information shown to the player will be a sequence of blanks, with one blank for each letter in the secret word. As the player guesses letters correctly, blanks representing guessed letters should be replaced by those letters. So, for example, if the secret word is “screwdriver” and the player has guessed ‘e,’ ‘s’, ‘r’, and ‘d,’ the current word status would be “s _ r e _ d r _ _ e r”.

Chances/The Hangman

The player will have six “chances” to guess the word. Guessing a correct letter does not cost a chance. Each missed chance will cause a new piece of the Hangman to appear. The six pieces of the Hangman are: head, body, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg. You may use a stick figure for your Hangman, but if you would like to be more creative with the appearance, feel free to do so. No matter what your hangman looks like, though, it should include these six pieces and no more.

Game End

The game can end in one of two ways:

• If the player has guessed the complete secret word, he or she wins.
• Otherwise, if the player has run out of chances and the complete Hangman has been drawn, the player loses.
  

In either case, when the game ends the host should stop asking for guesses. The host should inform the player whether he or she won or lost, and the assistant should reveal the entire secret word.

Implementation Details

Word List/Secret Word

You will be provided with a list of words from which the secret word should be chosen for each game. You will be shown in class how to import this list into your program. At the start of each game, a word should be randomly chosen from this list to be used as the secret word. The secret word must be chosen randomly, and must be a word in the list.

The word list is available for download here: wordsv2.txt

Documentation

In addition to functioning well, your program must be well-documented and readable. This includes, but is not limited to, things such as:

• organizing your scripts so that they can be read and comprehended easily
• giving your sprites meaningful names
• naming and using your variables, lists, and custom blocks well
• including comments to describe the structure of your program and any particularly complex or unintuitive pieces of code

Required Snap! Elements

Your program must include, at a minimum, the following Snap! code elements:

• At least two lists, once of which must be used to track guessed letters
• Custom blocks as appropriate, including arguments and reporters

Parent Feedback

For this project, we will continue the process of undergoing a review of your work by an outsider reviewer. This time, however, your program will be reviewed by a parent, guardian, or other adult family member. After receiving your feedback, you should consider the comments carefully and respond. You will turn in the feedback provided to you along with responses indicating how you modified your game in response to the feedback you received or why you chose not to make any changes.

Use the Parent Feedback Form for all parent reviews.

Rubric