Mini-project description — “Guess the number” game

One of the simplest two-player games is “Guess the number”. The first player thinks of a secret number
in some known range while the second player attempts to guess the number. After each guess, the first
player answers either “Higher”, “Lower” or “Correct!” depending on whether the secret number is
higher, lower or equal to the guess. In this project, you will build a simple interactive program in Python
where the computer will take the role of the first player while you play as the second player.

You will interact with your program using an input field and several buttons. For this project, we will
ignore the canvas and print the computer's responses in the console. Building an initial version of your
project that prints information in the console is a development strategy that you should use in later
projects as well. Focusing on getting the logic of the program correct before trying to make it display the
information in some “nice” way on the canvas usually saves lots of time since debugging logic errors in
graphical output can be tricky.

Mini-project development process

We have provided a basic template for this mini-project here. Our suggested development strategy for
the basic version of “Guess the number” is:

1. Decide on a set of global variables that contain the state of the game. For example, one obvious
choice is the secret number that has been generated by the program. You will need other global
variables, especially to accommodate later extensions to the basic game.
2. Figure out how to generate a random secret number in a given range, low to high. When
discussing ranges, we will follow the standard Python convention of including the low end of the
range and excluding the high end of the range, which can be expressed mathematically as [low,
high). So, [0, 3) means all of the numbers starting at 0 up to, but not including 3. In other words
0, 1, and 2. We suggest using the range [0, 100) in your first implementation. Hint: look at the
functions in the random module to figure out how to easily select such a random number. We
suggest testing this in a separate CodeSkulptor tab before adding code to your project.
3. Figure out how to create an input text box using the simplegui module. You will use this input to
get the guess from the user. For all variants of the game, this input field should always be active
(in other words, a game should always be in progress). Again, test in a separate CodeSkulptor
tab before adding code to your project.
4. Write the event handler input_guess(guess) that takes the input guess, compares it to the secret
number and prints out the appropriate response. Remember that guess is a string so you will
need to convert it into a number before testing it against the secret number. Hint: We have
showed you how to convert strings to numbers in the lectures.
5. Test your code by playing multiple games of “Guess the number” with a fixed range. At this
point, you will need to re-run your program between each game (using the CodeSkulptor “Run”
button).

From this minimal working version of “Guess the number”, the rest of this project consists of adding
extra functionality to your project. There are two improvements that you will need to make to get full
credit:
 1. Using function(s) in the simplegui module, add buttons to restart the game so that you don't
need to repeatedly click “Run” in CodeSkulptor to play multiple games. You should add two
buttons:
1. “Range: 0 - 100” and “Range: 0 - 1000” that allow the player to choose different ranges for the
secret number. Using either of these buttons should restart the game and print out an
appropriate message. They should work at any time during the game.
2. As you play “Guess the number”, you might notice that a good strategy is to maintain an interval
that consists of the highest guess that is “Lower” than the secret number and the lowest guess
that is “Higher” than the secret number. A good choice for the next guess is the number that is
the average of these two numbers. The answer for this new guess then allows you to figure a
new interval that contains the secret number and that is half as large. For example, if the secret
number is in the range [0, 100), it is a good idea to guess 50. If the answer is "Higher", the secret
number must be in the range [51, 100). It is then a good idea to guess 75 and so on. This
technique of successively narrowing the range corresponds to a well-known computer algorithm
known as binary search
3. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search_algorithm).
2. Your final addition to “Guess the number” will be to restrict the player to a limited number of
guesses. After each guess, your program should include in its output the number of remaining
guesses. Once the player has used up those guesses, they lose, the game prints out an
appropriate message, and a new game immediately starts.
4. Since the strategy above for playing “Guess the number” approximately halves the range of
possible secret numbers after each guess, any secret number in the range [low, high) can always
be found in at most n guesses where n is the smallest integer such that 2 ** n >= high - low + 1.
For the range [0, 100), n is seven. For the range [0, 1000), n is ten. Your program can simply set
the number of allowed guess to seven when the range is [0, 100) or ten when the range is [0,
1000). For more of a challenge, you may compute n from low and high using the functions
math.log and math.ceil in the math module.
5. When your program starts, the game should immediately begin in range [0, 100). When the
game ends (because the player either wins or runs out of guesses), a new game with the same
range as the last one should immediately begin. Whenever the player clicks one of the range
buttons, the current game should stop and a new game with the selected range should begin.

Evaluate your work — 11 pts total

Your peers will assess your mini-project according to the rubric given below. To guide you in
determining whether your project satisfies each item in the rubric, please consult the video that
demonstrates our implementation of “Guess the number”. Small deviations from the textual output of
our implementation are fine.

You should avoid potentially confusing deviations (such as printing “Too high” or “Too low” instead of
“Lower” and “Higher”). Whether moderate deviations satisfy an item of the grading rubric is at your
peers' discretion during their assessment.

Here is a breakdown of the scoring:

1 pt — The game starts immediately when the “Run” button in CodeSkulptor is pressed.
1 pt — A game is always in progress.

1 pt — The game reads guess from the input field and correctly prints it out.

3 pts — The game correctly plays “Guess the number” with the range [0, 100) and prints understandable
output messages to the console. Play three complete games: 1 pt for each correct game.

2 pts — The game includes two buttons that allow the user to select the range [0, 100) or the range [0,
1000) for the secret number. These buttons correctly change the range and print an appropriate
message. (1 pt per button.)

2 pts — The game restricts the player to a finite number of guesses and correctly terminates the game
when these guesses are exhausted. Award 1 pt if the number of remaining guesses is printed, but the
game does not terminate correctly.

1 pt — The game varies the number of allowed guesses based on the range of the secret number —
seven guesses for range [0, 100), ten guesses for range [0, 1000).

To help aid you in gauging what a full credit project might look like, the video lecture on the “Guess the
number” project includes a demonstration of our implementation of this project. You do not need to
validate that the input number is in the correct range. (For this game, that responsibility should fall on
the player.)

Submit your project

Email the URL for your cloud-saved mini-project to [email protected].