COMP 141: Project 7

Wheel of Fortune

Here are the details:

• Player 1 enters a secret phrase at the keyboard.
• Player 2 then has an unlimited number of turns to guess all the letters in the secret phrase, winning money for each correct consonant and having to pay money for each vowel.
• Before each turn, player 2 spins the "wheel" to pick an amount of money that each correct consonant will be worth (pick a random number between 1 and 100 using random.randint(1, 100).
• If player 2 wants to guess a consonant, they earn an amount of money equal to the spin value of the wheel multiplied by how many times the consonant occurs in the puzzle. For example, if they spin a 20 and guess the letter "c" and the puzzle has two c's, they win $40. If the puzzle has no c's, they don't win or lose anything.
• If player 2 wants to guess a vowel, the spin value of the wheel is ignored, and instead, player 2 is charged 10 dollars for every time their vowel appears in the puzzle. So if the player spins a 20 on the wheel, they guess the letter "a," and the puzzle has three a's, then they are charged $30 (the 20 spin is ignored).
• The game ends when all the letters are filled in.
• The user should be prevented from guessing the same letter more than once in a puzzle.

What you need to do

You must follow these steps:

• Read all of these directions! They are designed to help you!
• Download this pseudocode to get started. (The next two parts refer to functions in the pseudocode you will write.)
• Write the function called make_puzzle_string. This function is designed to turn the secret phrase into a "puzzle string" where all the letters that have not been guessed yet are replaced with underscores. This is useful for displaying the puzzle to the user throughout the game. Hint: This is a string transformation!
  • Use a normal "for" loop to loop over the string. This for loop should examine each character in the string in order and create a new string similar to the puzzle string, but with underscores in place of some of the characters.
• Write the function called count_letter. This function is designed to count the number of times a letter occurs in the secret phrase. This is useful for calculating how much money someone will win or lose for a certain letter. Hint: this is a counting operation (not surprisingly)!
• Test these functions from the Python shell (or write some test code in your main function) to make sure they work. I highly recommend trying many sample calls to your functions from the Python shell. Try the samples in the skeleton code.
• Write the main function, following the pseudocode.
• Big hint: The secret string never changes! Each time through the main loop of the program, the puzzle_string is re-created from the secret string. In the real game on TV, the puzzle seems to start with all letters as underscores and the underscores are eventually replaced with real letters. We simulate that by calling make_puzzle_string once each time inside the loop, which re-creates the puzzle string with underscores each time. (This is computationally easier than doing it exactly the way it's done on TV.)

You may assume everything typed in by the players is in lowercase.

You may assume that the player's money value is allowed to drop into the negatives (if they buy too many vowels). A challenge problem (see below) is to prevent this.

Sample Interaction

(Program begins)
Enter a phrase: too hot to hoot

Puzzle is: ___ ___ __ ____
You have 0 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 4 dollars.
Enter a letter: t

There are 4 t's.
You get 16 dollars.

Puzzle is: t__ __t t_ ___t
You have 16 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 57 dollars.
Enter a letter: a

Letter not in the puzzle.

Puzzle is: t__ __t t_ ___t
You have 16 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 46 dollars.
Enter a letter: o

You bought a vowel for 10 dollars each.
There are 6 o's.
You spend 60 dollars.

Puzzle is: too _ot to _oot
You have -44 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 8 dollars.
Enter a letter: h

There are 2 h's.
You get 16 dollars.

You win!
You won -28 dollars total!
The phrase was too hot to hoot.
(Program ends)

(Program begins)
Enter a phrase: rhodes college

Puzzle is: ______ _______
You have 0 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 30 dollars.
Enter a letter: l

There are 2 l's.
You get 60 dollars.

Puzzle is: ______ __ll___
You have 60 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 11 dollars.
Enter a letter: c

There are 1 c's.
You get 11 dollars.

Puzzle is: ______ c_ll___
You have 71 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 98 dollars.
Enter a letter: r

There are 1 r's.
You get 98 dollars.

Puzzle is: r_____ c_ll___
You have 169 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 36 dollars.
Enter a letter: h

There are 1 h's.
You get 36 dollars.

Puzzle is: rh____ c_ll___
You have 205 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 22 dollars.
Enter a letter: e

You bought a vowel for 10 dollars each.
There are 3 e's.
You spend 30 dollars.

Puzzle is: rh__e_ c_lle_e
You have 175 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 69 dollars.
Enter a letter: g

There are 1 g's.
You get 69 dollars.

Puzzle is: rh__e_ c_llege
You have 244 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 36 dollars.
Enter a letter: o

You bought a vowel for 10 dollars each.
There are 2 o's.
You spend 20 dollars.

Puzzle is: rho_e_ college
You have 224 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 89 dollars.
Enter a letter: d

There are 1 d's.
You get 89 dollars.

Puzzle is: rhode_ college
You have 313 dollars so far.
Consonants are worth 8 dollars.
Enter a letter: s

There are 1 s's.
You make 8 dollars.

You won 321 dollars!
The phrase was rhodes college.
(Program ends)

What to turn in

Challenge Problems

• On the TV show, the wheel has a BANKRUPT space on it. If the player lands on that space, they lose all their money (and don't get to guess a letter). Implement this in your program (pick a percentage that this will come up, such as 5% of the time).
• On the TV show, if the player thinks they know the answer to the puzzle before all the letters are filled in, they may guess the whole phrase at once to end the game immediately (assuming they guess correctly, of course). Implement this in your program, so the user may choose to guess the entire phrase once they think they know it, rather than making them guess each letter individually.
• On the TV show, there are three players each playing against each other. Make your program work with three players as follows: Each player has their own amount of money. If the letter a player guesses is correct (it occurs in the secret phrase), they get to keep guessing letters until they guess wrong. Then play passes to the next player.
• Add graphics to your program (the puzzle, money values, spinning wheel, etc).
• Let the program work with uppercase or lowercase letters.
• Prevent the player from buying a vowel unless they have enough money to pay for it.