Azramind is a command-line game modeled after the popular board game Mastermind. It is written in Python with a backend and RESTful API written in Python/Flask, which can be found here in a separate repository. Link to Azramind Backend

I had a lot of fun building this game! I hope you enjoy playing it.

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:

• Python 3.7.4+
• PIP package manager (automatically included in Python 3 >=3.4)
• requests library
• an internet connection

INSTRUCTIONS TO RUN THE GAME PROGRAM:

• Open your terminal.
• git clone https://github.com/azra-mind/game-azramind.git to clone the master branch of the repo.
• cd game-azramind to cd into the root directory of the repo.
• pip3 install -r requirements.txt to Install the requirements.
• Now you're ready to play the game!
• python3 program_logic.py to start the game program.
• Game play instructions are included in the program.

CODE STRUCTURE:

• This repo provides the user interface for playing the game.
• To view the api written in python/flask that saves the scores, please visit the backend repository here
• There are 3 main files that form the codebase for this program.

program_logic.py

• contains the main logic for the game program. This is the file you run in your terminal to start the game.
• When you run the file, you will see a main menu of 3 choice: 1 play the game 2 rules of the game 3 view past scores q to quit game at any time
• Upon selecting 1 play the game, you will be prompted to enter a new or existing username.
• Then you will automatically drop into the game.
• After finishing the game, your score will be saved to the database and you will return to the main menu.
• Upon selecting 3 view past scores You can observe your past scores whuch are saved in a Postgres DB.

azramind_func.py

• contains the the function azramind which has the logic for the game itself.

util.py

• contains helper functions utilized in program_logic.py and azramind_func.py.

GAME EXTENSIONS:

• I built a backend in Python/Flask to include the ability to save and retrieve past scores.
• I added the ability to view the rules of the game.
• I also made the number of guesses allowed and the number of digits to guess configurable in the code, but not by the player (yet). I hope to continue building on this project to - enable the game player to configure those options as well.
• Lastly, I added a little commentary to make the game a bit more lively.

HOW I APPROACHED BUILDING THIS GAME:

I built this game in Python because it is my favorite language to code in out of the ones I've tried thus far (Ruby, Javascript, Python). In addition, I really enjoy building APIs and thought this would be a great way for me to learn how to do so using Python.

While I knew how to bulid APIs in Node.js, and knew enough Python to solve CS coding challenge style problems in Algorithms, Datastructures, I had never built a backend utilizing Object Oriented Programming, nor had I ever built a REST API from scratch using a Python framework such as Flask or Django prior to building this project. I decided to use this challenge as a forcing function to teach myself something that I'd been meaning to learn anyway: How to build a backend and RESTful API in Flask. I chose Flask over Django because it is a more light-weight framework that I could learn and deploy quickly, yet it scales well since companies like Netflix, Reddit, an Lyft use it.

I spent the first day understanding and fulfilling the basic requirements for the project. Then, I spent about 3 days learning how to build a backend in Flask. I spent another 3 days building out the backend as well as a proper game program with a user menu etc. I spent the final day writing documentation and QA testing the project.

WHAT'S NEXT:

I plan to continue working on this project to build upon my knowledge.

Game Play Interface

• Add the ability for the player to configure difficult levels
• better error handling for no internet connection
• Build out a frontend in React.js
• ability to play in offline mode

Backend

• Add unit tests to the backend repo
• Add user authorization (login/password)
• Add a lookup table for difficulty levels (easy/medium/hard)