Simple Hangman game - first Python project

Question

I created a basic Hangman game that uses a text file to select a secret word. Are there any areas for improvement?

import random


secret_word = ['']
user_list = []
number_of_tries = 5
guessed_letters = []
user_tries = 0
user_guess = ''


def select_word():
    global secret_word, user_list
    with open('secret_words.txt', 'r') as f:
        word = f.read()
        word_list = word.split('\n')
        secret_word = word_list[random.randint(1, len(word_list))]
        user_list = ['-'] * len(secret_word)


def game_over():
    if user_tries == number_of_tries or user_list == list(secret_word):
        return True
    else:
        return False


def user_input():
    global user_guess
    user_guess = input('Guess a letter\n')
    check_guess(user_guess)


def repeated(guess):
    global guessed_letters
    if guess in guessed_letters:
        print('You already guessed that letter!\n')
        return True
    else:
        guessed_letters.append(user_guess)
        return False


def check_guess(guess):
    correct_guess = False
    for x in range(len(secret_word)):
        if guess == secret_word[x]:
            user_list[x] = guess
            correct_guess = True
        elif not correct_guess and x == len(secret_word)-1:
            global user_tries
            user_tries += 1
            print('Wrong guess, you lose one try\n'
                  'Remaining tries : {}\n'.format(number_of_tries - user_tries))
    if correct_guess:
        print('Correct guess!')


def valid_input(user_letter):
    valid_letters = 'qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm'
    if user_letter.lower() in list(valid_letters):
        return True
    else:
        print('Invalid input')
        return False

# main code:


print('----HANG MAN----')
print('*Welcome, guess the word\n*you have 5 tries.')
select_word()

while not game_over():
    for x in user_list:
        print(x, end='')
    user_guess = input('\nGuess a letter : ')
    if valid_input(user_guess):
        if repeated(user_guess):
            continue
        else:
            check_guess(user_guess)


if user_list != list(secret_word):
    print('Game over, you died!\ncorrect word was {}'.format(secret_word))
else:
    print('Congratulations! you guessed the correct word\n')

Answer 1

For the word selection, there is a bug on

secret_word = word_list[random.randint(1, len(word_list))]

you should change to

secret_word = word_list[random.randint(0, len(word_list)-1)]

because random.randint(1, len(word_list)) does not return 0 index, and could return an index off the bound (len(word_list)).

Also, you may remove secret_word = [''] and user_list=[] at the beginning.

number_of_tries = 5
guessed_letters = []
user_tries = 0
user_guess = ''

def select_word():
    with open('secret_words.txt', 'r') as f:
        word = f.read()
        word_list = word.split('\n')
        secret_word = word_list[random.randint(0, len(word_list)-1)]
        user_list = ['-'] * len(secret_word)
    return secret_word, user_list

looks more compact. So you can use it as :

print('----HANG MAN----')
print('*Welcome, guess the word\n*you have 5 tries.')

secret_word, user_list = select_word()

...

---

---

Also for efficiency and compactness, you can change this

while not game_over():
    for x in user_list:
        print(x, end='')
    user_guess = input('\nGuess a letter : ')
    if valid_input(user_guess):
        if repeated(user_guess):
            continue
        else:
            check_guess(user_guess)

to:

while not game_over():
    print(''.join(user_list))
    user_guess = input('\nGuess a letter : ')
    if valid_input(user_guess):
        if not repeated(user_guess):
            check_guess(user_guess)

---

---

For the game itself, you may want to try using classes, which will make it more readable and easier to analyze.

Answer 2

• this if statement is a bit silly:

      if user_tries == number_of_tries or user_list == list(secret_word):
          return True
      else:
          return False
  

  It could easily be:

      return user_tries == number_of_tries or user_list == list(secret_word)
  

  since that expression evaluates to True or False, just return it directly

• Instead of

  secret_word = word_list[random.randint(1, len(word_list))]
  

  you can use the much more readable random.choice:

  secret_word = random.choice(word_list)
  

• your user_input routine isn't used at all. Nuke it or use it.

• You use a lot of global state. This is generally frowned upon because it makes the code less reusable. You should first off, try to use less global state: put function results into variables and pass them around, instead. This makes those functions much more reusable. If you absolute must use global state, still don't: instead make an object that stores that "global" state, and turn the functions that use it into methods on the object.