Assignment 2 (Problem solving using branches and loops)

To the faculty page of James Tam

CPSC 217: Assignment 2 (The Tam "Dungeon of Doom")

Due at 4 PM. For assignment due dates see the main schedule on the course webpage. The program must be written and run under python version 3.X.

Link to things that were missing or incorrect in some of the student A1 submissions:

https://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~tamj/2021/217P/assignments/assignment2/A1_common_issues.html

Assignment difficulty

Students may find assignments more challenging than they first thought. It's best to start work as early as possible. Tips in the very first lecture were provided but here's two reminders: 1) work through the lecture and tutorial material before looking in detail at the assignments 2) start work as soon as possible. If you find you cannot complete an assignment before the due date then you will not be granted an extension.

Note: it is not sufficient to just implement a working program and expect full credit. This is so you implement your solution in the correct way using good design principles and you apply the necessary concepts. Even if your program is fully working and the program is not designed or implemented as specified in the assignment description (e.g. poor variable names used, named constants not used when they should have employed etc.) then you will not be awarded full credit. For some assignments your grade may be greatly reduced. For example, in all the later assignments you need to employ functional decomposition and do so in a the proper specified manner. If you do not do this then your maximum assignment grade point could be as low as 1.0 GPA even with a fully working program. Although the earlier assignments will not have marking requirements which are quite as strict take care to read the specific details provided in each assignment which is provided under the "Marking and grading" section of each 'full' assignment. The marking of the mini-assignments will focus on program functionality.

New Concepts to be applied for the assignment

Problem solving using branches and loops in Python.
If you want credit for your work: Do not use any pre-created functions/methods unless you are given explicit permission to do so. [Generic list of allowable pre-created code in the form of python libraries]

Only new concepts that need to be applied in the assignment are listed, concepts previously applied in other assignments may need to used in the implementation of your solution.

Functional requirements (for the marks allocated for each feature see the marking spreadsheet)

Write a text-based "choose your own" adventure game. There will be three 'rooms' in the game world, within each room the player will see a number of choices and the program will react to the player's selection. The game will repeatedly run the game via a main loop. This loop contains most of the instructions of the program and it runs until the game has been won.

The goal of this mini-game is to open the locked door inner to access the rest of the house. When the door has been unlocked the player can return to the entrance room and open the door to the rest of the house satisfying the goal of this mini-game (which is to gain access the inner sanctum of the house). When this occurs the main loop ends and a suitable congratulatory message should be displayed and the program ends.

Sample program output:

A text file ["output_normal_play.txt"] shows sample execution of my solution with a normal play through (no erroneous selections). Another text file ]["output_invalid_selections.txt"] illustrates what should happen when the player selects an option that isn't listed.

Entrance room description

The player begins the game in the entrance. The door that brought the person into the house is gone (it's a "one-way portal"). When the player is in this room the game will describe the list of possible actions:

Try to open the door

Go through the left entryway

Go through the right entryway

As mentioned the player cannot open the inner door until it has been unlocked. The player can freely pass through either entryway with no conditions. Entering a non-existent selection will result in a suitable helpful error message (refer to the last section of the 'repetition' notes, rules of thumb for how to write good error messages) and the above options are displayed again. The program does not have to handle cases where an invalid type of information (e.g. string instead of number) has been entered. (However the inability to handle invalid types should then be documented as a ["program limitation"]). As long as the player remains in the room the program will repeatedly display the above menu options (using a loop) after each time that the user enters a selection.

Pantry description

As shown in the above map the player can freely pass between the entrance and the pantry. When the player is in the pantry, the game will display the list of possible actions:

Turn the silver lock to the left position

Turn the silver lock to the right position

Turn the silver lock to the center position

Don't change the position! Return to entranceway

The program must show the current position of the lock e.g. "The silver lock is currently set to the right position.". The starting default is the 'left' position. (The unlocked position is 'right'). Similar to the entrance if the player enters an invalid selection in the pantry, a suitable helpful error message should be displayed and the list of options for the pantry will be shown again. As long as the player remains in the room the program will repeatedly display the above menu options (using a loop) after each time the user enters a selection.

Kitchen description

As shown in the above map the player can freely pass between the entrance and the kitchen. When the player is in the kitchen, the game will display the list of possible actions:

Turn the gold lock to the left position

Turn the gold lock to the right position

Turn the gold lock to the center position

Don't change the position! Return to entranceway

The program must show the current lock position e.g. "The gold lock is currently set to the center position." The starting default is the 'center' position. (The unlocked position is 'left'. Similar to the entrance if the player enters an invalid selection in the kitchen, a suitable helpful error message should be displayed and then the list of options for the kitchen will be shown again. As long as the player remains in the room the program will repeatedly display the above menu options (using a loop) after each time that the user enters a selection.

In addition to grading on whether the above functionality was correctly implemented TAs will also look at style and documentation.

Non -functional assignment requirements (style and documentation).

Naming conventions: You should employ good naming conventions for identifiers (variables and constants) as covered in the "Intro to programming" section of the course.
Python documentation: contact information (your name, student identification number and tutorial number). This should be specified in the header of the program (very top of your program in the form of Python documentation).
- Identifying information: All assignments should include contact information (full name, student ID number and tutorial section) at the very top of your program.
- Program version (dates are an acceptable alternative)
  - Under the version you should specify which assignment features were implemented in that version.
- Any program limitations or weaknesses.
- If you don't know how to document a program then refer to the "Intro to programming" section of the course.
Your prompts to the user to enter the required information should be clear to the user as to what should and should not be entered.
The program output and the program code itself (python program) must be properly aligned and formatted including whitespace as needed to group related parts and separate sections (which again was covered in the "Intro to programming" lectures of the course.
Named constants should be used as appropriate (and if they aren't a penalty will be incurred).

Yes do it this way! No. Not this way!

LEFT = 0
RIGHT = 1
CENTER = 2
if (silverLockPosition == RIGHT): if (silverLockPosition == 0): #What does 0 stand for???

Having at least one violation in one of the above categories will result in -0.1 penalty to marking. Multiple violations in one category still results in a single penalty (e.g. 3 bad variable names will still result in a -0.1 penalty). However violations between categories will result in cumulative penalties (e.g. a program that includes poor variable names and no documentation of features and no documentation of weaknesses will receive a -0.3 penalty).

Marking and grading

What to submit: In a typical semester submitted programs must run on the computer science network running Python 3.x. If you write you code in the lab and work remotely using a remote login program such as Putty or SSH then you should be okay (assuming you don't login to a non-Linux computer). If you choose to install Python on your own computer then it is your responsibility to ensure that your program will run properly here. Remote learning version: If it won't run using Python 3.x on any computer then it won't be awarded credit. It's up to you if you wish use the graphical program builder IDLE (or another development environment rather than a simple text editor) to write/run your programs but if you do you submit your program in the form of text ".py" file or files.
Late assignments or components of assignments: will not be accepted for marking without approval for an extension beforehand. Alternate submission mechanisms (non exhaustive list of examples: email, uploads to cloud-based systems such as Google drive, time-stamps, TA memories) cannot be used as alternatives if you have forgotten to submit work or otherwise have not properly submitted into D2L. Only files submitted into D2L by the due date is what will be marked, everything else will be awarded no credit. The final cut off date after which full assignments will not be accepted is after the maximum progressive penalty (listed below) can be applied. The final cut off date for mini-assignments is the due date because no late submissions are allowed for these smaller programs.
Extensions may be granted for reasonable cases by the course instructor with the receipt of the appropriate documentation (e.g., a sworn declaration with a commissioner of oaths). Typical examples of reasonable cases for an extension include: illness or a death in the family. Example cases where extensions will not be granted include situations that are typical of student life: having multiple due dates, work commitments etc. Tutorial instructors (TAs) will not be able to provide extension on their own and must receive permission from the course instructor first. If you request an extension from me let me know the name of your tutorial instructor and the tutorial number because the markers won't accept late submissions without directly getting an email from me.
How you will be graded for full assignments. As mentioned, as well as being marked on whether "your program works" you will also be marked on non-functional requirements such as style and documentation. Consequently this assignment will include a separate [marking checklist]. Besides seeing your grade point in D2L you can also see the detailed feedback that your TA will enter for each student. You can access the grading sheet in D2L under Assessments->Dropbox and then clicking on the appropriate assignment link. If you still cannot find the grading sheet then here is a [help link]
Questions about grading afterward: Assignments will be marked by your tutorial instructor (the "Teaching Assistant" or "TA") for your tutorial section. When you have questions about marking this is the first person that you should be directing your questions towards. If you still have question after you have talked to your TA, then you can talk to your course (lecture) instructor but please indicate in your email that you first contacted your TA.

Method of submission:

You are to submit your assignment using D2L [help link]. Make sure that you [check the contents of your submitted files] (e.g., is the file okay or was it corrupted, is it the correct version etc.). It's your responsibility to do this! (Make sure that you submit your assignment with enough time before it comes due for you to do a check). If don't check and there were problems with the submission then you should not expect that you can "learn your lesson" and simply resubmit.

D2L configuration for this course

Multiple submissions are allowed for this assignment (all versions are kept in D2L): You can (and really should) submit work as many times as you wish before the due date. However only the latest version of all the files is what will be marked, everything else will be ignored (because it is not fair to your marker to sort through multiple versions of your files).

Do not use compression utilities (such as zip) or archiving utilities (such as tar) otherwise your submission may not be marked. The space savings in D2L is not worth the extra time required by the marker to process each submission.

Late submissions for full assignments when there is no extension granted: Make sure you give yourself enough time to complete the submission process so you don't get cut off by D2L's deadline (or your submission will be automatically flagged as late by D2L and it will be graded appropriately)..

Submission received:	On time	Hours late : >0 and <=24	Hours late: >24 and <=48	Hours late: >48 and <=72	Hours late: >72 and <=96	Hours late: >96
Penalty:	None	-1 GPA	-2 GPA	-3 GPA	-4 GPA	No credit (not accepted)

Collaboration:

Assignments must reflect individual work; group work is not allowed in this class nor can you copy the work of others. Some "do nots" for your solution: don't publically post it, don't email it out, don't show it to other students. For more detailed information as to what constitutes academic misconduct (i.e., cheating) for this course please read the following [link].

Use of pre-created Python libraries:

Unless otherwise told you are to write the code yourself and not use any pre-created functions (or methods). For most assignments the usual acceptable functions include: print(), input() and the 'conversion' functions such as int(), float(), str(). Look at the particular assignment description for a list of other functions/methods that you are allowed to use and still get credit in an assignment submission. If it's not listed then you should assume that you won't be able use the function and still be awarded credit.

Yes do it this way!	No. Not this way!
LEFT = 0 RIGHT = 1 CENTER = 2 if (silverLockPosition == RIGHT):	if (silverLockPosition == 0): #What does 0 stand for???