How's it Hanging

Table of Contents

• How's it Hanging
  • Flow Chart
  • User Experience
    • Project Goals
    • User Stories
    • Coloured Text
    • Process Flow Chart
    • Game Features
      • Technology Used
      • Languages Used
    • Testing
      • User Stories Testing
      • Validation Testing
      • Bugs:
        • Fixed Bugs:
    • Deployment:
    • References:
    • Acknowledgements

A link to the deployed website can be found here.

Flow Chart

User Experience

Project Goals

• The game is easy to navigate and user friendly.
• The game to loop and allow the player to continue to play after each game.
• The game should have a choice of difficulty levels.
• It should be clear how many attempts are left in the game.
• To provide the user with an easy to find instructions section to explain how the game works.

User Stories

• As a player, I want the instructions to be easily accessible.
• As a player, I want the game to be user friendly.
• As a player, I want the game to be fun and engaging.
• As a player, I want there to be a selection of levels.

Coloured Text

• Throughout the design of the project I followed a flow chart and extended this logic to the visual design of the game. I decided to implement a simple colour scheme to improve the overall user experience.
  • The colour red ("\033[0;31m) was used for errors and wrong guesses.
  • The colour cyan ("\033[0;36m) was used for input lines.
  • The colour green ("\033[0;32m) was used for the instruction's menu and for correct guesses.

Process Flow Chart

Lucid Charts was used to design the logic used in the development of this game.

Game Features

Feature	Description	Example
Welcome page	Welcome screen
Name	Asking for users name all characters valid to allow individuality
Instructions	Simple game instuctions are shown to the user if selected
Attempts	Screen displayed with remaining attempts this counts down with every wrong guess
Letters Played	Display of previous guesses is shown after every turn
Winning Message	Screen displayed when user wins
Losing Message	Screen displayed when user loses
Choice of levels	Screen displayed for choice of levels. Options are 1 for easy and 2 for hard. The choice determines how many letters will be in the word.
Hangman Images	Hangman Images displayed when wrong guesses made.
Play again	Screen displayed asking to play again giving the user the option to 1. go again or 2. return to the main menu
Clear Terminal	Terminal cleared between turns to improve overall user experience

Future Features

• High Score Display
  • A future feature that I would like to add to the app is to display high scores. This would be achieved using a Google Spreadsheet to store the number of attempts it took, or numbers of games won for each name entered. This scoreboard could then be displayed by printing the contents to the terminal.
• Level of Difficulty
  • Although this game provides users with the choice of playing an Easy or Hard game, I would like to add more attempts to the Easy level to further distinguish between the two levels. This would be achieved by saving the hangman images in a new file and calling the altered Easy diagrams for the Easy game or the Standard diagrams for the Hard game.

Languages Used

• Python

Technology Used

• GitPod was used for writing code, committing, and then pushing to GitHub.
• Github was used to store the project after pushing.
• Lucid Charts was used to create and design the flow chart used in the logical design of this project.
• Am I Responsive? was used in order to see responsive design throughout the process.
• PEP8 online check was used to validate the python code.
• Heroku was used to deploy the application.
• Built-in Python Libraries

  • os -> The os library was imported to create a function to utilise the os.system to clear the terminal. This library was imported to improve the overall user experience and to ensure the terminal is clear between rounds.

  • random -> The random library was imported to access the built-in method of generating a random word from the word.py file using the "random." method.

  • sys -> The sys library was imported to create a function that allows the user to exit the game. This was achieved using the built in sys.exit() method.

Testing

Feature	Outcome	Example	Pass
Name Input	Validate if field is empty		Pass
Name Input	Validate if entry is valid		Pass
Main menu	Validate if entry is valid - special character input		Pass
Main menu	Validate if entry is valid - letter input		Pass
Main menu	Validate if entry is valid - number input		Pass
Main menu	Validate if field is empty		Pass
Instructions Options	Validate if selection is valid - option 1		Pass
Instructions Options	Validate if selection is valid - option 2		Pass
Instructions Options	Validate if field is empty		Pass
Instructions Options	Validate if selection is valid - letter test		Pass
Instructions Options	Validate if selection is valid - wrong number test		Pass
Instructions Options	Validate if selection is valid - special character test		Pass
Level Selection	Validate if selection is valid - option 1		Pass
Level Selection	Validate if selection is valid - option 2	>	Pass
Level Selection	Validate if field is empty	>	Pass
Level Selection	Validate if selection is valid - letter	>	Pass
Level Selection	Validate if selection is valid - Number	>	Pass
Level Selection	Validate if selection is valid - Special Character	>	Pass
Game Play	Validate if selection is valid - special character test		Pass
Game Play	Validate if selection is valid - Number test		Pass
Game Play	Validate if field is empty		Pass
Game Play	Validate if selection is valid - Multiple character test		Pass
Winning Message	Validate if message is correct		Pass
Losing Message	Validate if message is correct		Pass
Play again input	Validate if selection is valid - option 1		Pass
Play again input	Validate if selection is valid - option 2		Pass
Play again input	Validate if selection is valid - letter		Pass
Play again input	Validate if selection is valid - number		Pass
Play again input	Validate if selection is valid - special		Pass
Play again input	Validate if field is empty		Pass
Exit Game option	Validate if field is empty		Pass

User Stories Testing

• As a user I want the game to be easy to navigate.
  • This was achieved by using the numbers 1 and 2 for Yes and No consistently throughout the game.
• As a user I want the game to loop and allow players to continue playing or exit after each round.
  • This was achieved by asking player if they want to play again after each win or loss with 1 starting the game again and 2 bringing the user back to the main menu.
• As a user I want it to be clear how many attempts are left.
  • This was achieved by printing the remaining attempts after each round of the game.
• As a user I want to give the user a choice of difficulty.
  • This was achieved by providing the user with a choice of easy or hard difficulty levels at the start of each game.
• To provide the user with an easy to find instructions section to explain how the game works.
  • This was achieved by providing an instructions option on the main menu.

Validation Testing:

Testing	Results
Initial validation testing
Final validation testing
Words.py validation testing

• The code was tested using a PEP8 validator and the initial results were fixed by correcting all of the errors and warnings shown until none remained.

Bugs:

Fixed Bugs:

Bug	Example	Description	Fix
Name Entry		This bug was noted during testing. The original code allowed for a space to be entered as a Name. However, this was not a valid entry as it does not print a name to the terminal.	This was fixed by adding an elif statement to the code to ensure that a character needs to be entered.
Numbers accepted		This bug was noted during testing of the game. It was noted that numbers were accepted as valid guesses by the user.	This bug was fixed by adding the isalpha() method to the elif statement for players_turn.
Double Hangman		This bug was observed during game play that if a guess was made two hangman images were printed in error.	This bug was fixed by removing the second print(hangman_status(attempts)) that was present in the code.

Deployment:

The application has been deployed using Heroku by following these steps:

Heroku was used to deploy the application.

• Commit changes and push them to GitHub.
• Go to the Heroku's website.
• Create an account or select log in.
• From the Heroku dashboard, click on "Create new app".
• Enter the "App name" and "Choose a region" before clicking on "Create app".
• Go to "Config Vars" under the "Settings" tab.
• Click on "Reveals Config Vars" and add the KEY: CREDS and the VALUE stored in creds.json file if needed.
• Add the Config Var, KEY: PORT and VALUE: 8000.
• Go to "Buildpacks" section and click "Add buildpack".
• Select "python" and click "Save changes"
• Add "nodejs" buildpack as well using the same process.
• Go to "Deployment method", under the "Deploy" tab select "GitHub" and click on "Connect to GitHub".
• Go to "Connect to GitHub" section and "Search" the repository to be deployed.
• Click "Connect" next the repository name.
• Choose "Automatic deploys" or "Manual deploys" to deploy your application.

References:

• The code used to create the images that display the hangman image to the user were adapted from youtube and github user Kiteco.
• W3Schools was used as a resource for solving syntax errors and for the isalpha() method.
• Askpython was used for the implementation of sys.exit()
• Stack Overflow was used for assistance with troubleshooting issues.
• Yawin Tutor was used for fixing syntax and coding errors that appeared throughout the coding process.

Acknowledgements

• First I would like to thank my Partner for his love and support throughout the completion of this project.
• I would also like to thank my mentor Marcel for his advice and support.
• My friends for constantly testing the project.
• Tutor Assistance for their help and support.
• Code Institute and its Slack community for their support and providing me with the necessary knowledge to complete this project.