The latest articles on DEV Community by Jemal Young (@jemalyoung). https://dev.to/jemalyoung https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F968185%2Fe73b2e15-bbf7-48a1-9eb5-85e7aaa12b1d.jpeg https://dev.to/jemalyoung en Jemal Young Tue, 08 Nov 2022 05:26:50 +0000 https://dev.to/jemalyoung/babys-first-text-based-horror-game-52af https://dev.to/jemalyoung/babys-first-text-based-horror-game-52af <p><em>Gradient Descent</em> is my final project for Codecademy's CS101 course; the assignment was to "build a basic terminal program of your choice", so I made a text-based horror game in the style of <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure">Choose Your Own Adventure</a></em>.</p> <p>This game is unfinished, and I hope to keep working on it as time allows.</p> <p><a href="https://i.giphy.com/media/VOJs5Jnlpt5ekQcfoF/giphy.gif" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://i.giphy.com/media/VOJs5Jnlpt5ekQcfoF/giphy.gif" alt="Gradient Descent gameplay" width="480" height="286"></a></p> <p>The code has a lot of redundancy, especially for pacing and text effects. In hindsight, I could have created a few functions and just called those. I'd like to make that improvement. I'd also like to make the scenarios (decision_1(), decision_2()...) modular i.e. easily callable from one another, whereas right now the final-decision scenario is the only modular one. The game would ideally be a Möbius strip of flexible decision-making horror, until the player reaches a terminal state.</p> <p><a href="https://github.com/jemalyoung/terminal-game-gradient-descent">Link to the code on GitHub</a></p> <p>This project taught me how easy it is to become fascinated by the siren song of low-hanging marginal improvements. I want to keep working on this damned script, there are so many problems with it and it could be so much better.</p> beginners python codenewbie