COMP1_2014_Task3.md

#Task Sheet 3 - Further Game Improvements

##Introduction This series of tasks continues the theme of adding improvements to the game, including saving and restoring a running game and adding the concept of "lives" to the game.

##Task 11 - Guessing the same card When playing the game if the next card that comes off the deck is equal in value to the current card, the new card is not higher. Therefore, if you guessed than the next card was going to be higher you will lose the game. This seems somewhat harsh - it would be better if the game just moved on to the next card but you didn't score a point in this situation.

It should work as follows:

###Questions Answer the following questions:

1. Where would be a good place in the program to keep track of whether the same card should be considered lower or not? Remember that this value will be set before a game is started and it will not change for the duration of the game.
2. Name the two functions that will need to be modified so that card value comparisons will work correctly now that the same card may or may not be considered lower.
3. What additional value will you need to return from one of the above functions so that the game knows whether the cards have the same value or not.
4. Describe the alterations you will need to make to DisplayOptions() and GetOptionChoice() to allow for the new option.

###Pseudo-code You will need one additional function to make this improvement possible:

• SetSameScore() - asks the user to decide whether the next card (if it has the same value) should be considered as having the same or lower value as the current card.

Remember that validation should be included where necessary.

1. Write pseudo-code for the function identified above.

###Program code Make the following changes to the code in the program:

1. Amend the functions you identified in Question 4 so that you can change this option from the main menu
2. Convert the pseudo-code you have written to Python code.
3. Improve the function you identified in Question 2 so that comparisons work correctly.
4. Test your changes to ensure that the program works as expected.

##Task 12a - Saving your progress A common feature of most games is the ability to save your current progress and continue from that point at a later date. We will need to add this functionality to our program.

It should work as follows:

Obviously the current deck will need to be saved to the text file deck.txt but in order to restore the game state we will need to store additional information.

###Questions Answer the following questions:

1. Name and justify the pieces of data that must be stored in order to restore the game state
2. What kind of file would be most appropriate to save this information in? Explain why this is the case.
3. Identify the two functions you will need to save the state of the game.

###Pseudo-code Write pseudo-code for each of the functions you identified in Question 3

###Program code Make the following changes to the code in the program:

1. Convert the pseudo-code you have created into the equivalent Python code.
2. Make the necessary changes to the function PlayGame() so that the state of the game can be saved.

##Task 12b - Restoring an existing game Now that the relevant data has been stored successfully into files the game will need to be able to restore this game if we choose to do so.

This should work as follows:

###Questions Answer the following questions:

1. Describe the changes that will be necessary in PlayGame() to allow for this new behaviour in the program.

###Program code Make the following changes to the code in the program:

1. Create a new function called LoadGameProgress() that will return either the game data from the file or None to represent that nothing was loaded.
2. Make the necessary changes to PlayGame() to allow the user to choose to continue an existing game. Ensure that it is still possible to play a new game as well.

##Task 13 - Lives Many computer games have the concept of lifes - you get more than a single chance to win the game. Currently our game is over as soon as you make a single mistake. It would be a little gentler if the player could have at least a few lives to play with!

Obviously, if a live is lost the the player's score should not be increased.

###Program code Make the changes necessary to add the concept of lives to the game. Remember that your saving and loading functions should still work after these modifications.

##Task 14 - Deck creation One really strange thing about the current program is that the deck of cards is always generated from information stored in a file. This makes sense when you have saved the state of an existing game but does not when you are starting a new game.

It would be much simplier to create the deck in Python without referring to a text file.

###Program code Make the following changes to the code in the program:

1. Create a new function called CreateNewDeck that will construct and return an appropraite deck of cards.
2. Call this new function instead of loading the information from a file at the appropriate point in PlayGame().

##Task 15 - Higher or lower Currently the question asked when guessing the next card is a little weird - it would be better if it asked you whether you thought the next card was going to be higher or lower than the current card.

###Program code Make the necessary changes to the program so that the program works based on the user entering higher or lower rather than yes or no.

##Next The next set of tasks will deal with more signifcant, advanced improvements that you could make to the program.