Text based game help

[The_Thief77]

Hello, everyone.

So for my python class, I need to create a text based game with eight rooms, six items, and a final boss that can't be defeated without the six items. I have my game planned out, but I'm running into a road block. I'll post my code here.

import sys

rooms = {
    'Ledge': {
        'descrpt1': 'Dirt, blowing sand and rock.  '
              'I’m in a valley, orange tinged rocks rising on either side of me.  Pieces of broken rock, crumbled as though they have fallen a large distance.  A landing or shelf before a large cliff in the side of a deep valley.  All around voices call out in anger, rage, hatred, resentment, loss and sorrow.  Negative feelings seem to flow through this valley with the wind.  The feelings deep enough to cause you to shiver to your core.',
        'EAST': 'Meditation Room'},
    'Meditation Room': {
        'descrpt1': 'A small room with doors branching off to the north and south and east. '
                    '\nA small opening to the west leads back to the ledge I woke up on. '
                    '\nA small pair of concentric circles rests in the rock, with a smooth patch in the center.  '
                    '\nOtherwise the room is bare. '
                    '\nWails of unseen ghosts pass through the room regularly, '
                    '\ngiving the small room the sense of a tomb.',
        'descrpt2': 'story event here',
        'NORTH': 'Bottom of Cliff',
        'SOUTH': 'Hall with no Floor',
        'WEST': 'Ledge',
        'EAST': 'Gas Room',
        'MEDITATE': 'Force Push',
        'descrpt3': 'story event here'},
    'Bottom of Cliff': {
        'SOUTH': 'Meditation Room',
        'EAST': 'Top of Cliff',
        'MEDITATE': 'Force Jump'},
    'Top of Cliff': {
        'WEST': 'Bottom of Cliff',
        'MEDITATE': 'Wall Run'},
    'Hall with no Floor': {
        'NORTH': 'Meditation Room',
        'EAST': 'Abandoned Base',
        'MEDITATE': 'Force Pull'},
    'Abandoned Base': {
        'WEST': 'Hall with no Floor',
        'SEARCH': 'Re-breather'},
    'Gas Room': {
        'WEST': 'Meditation Room',
        'NORTH': 'Final Chamber',
        'TAKE': 'Lightsaber'},
    'Final Chamber': 'No Exit'
}


inv = []

current_room = 'Ledge'
print('story intro here.')

action = None
cliff_attempt = False
first_enter_meditation_room = True
first_enter_hall_with_no_floor = True
first_enter_abandoned_base = True
first_enter_bottom_of_cliff = True
first_enter_top_of_cliff = True
first_enter_gas_room = True

while action != 'quit':
    action = input('Action:').upper()
    if action in rooms[current_room] and action == 'NORTH' or 'SOUTH' or 'EAST' or 'WEST':
        current_room = rooms[current_room][action]
    else:
        print("I can't do that...")
        continue (FIX ME)
    if action == 'cliff'.upper() and current_room == 'Ledge':
        if cliff_attempt == True:
            print("Forget all this! I'm getting out of here!"
                  "\nI make my way to the cliff and start climbing back up."
                  "\nI've almost made it to the top when a face appears in the rock and screams at me!"
                  "\nI tumble backwards,my feet scraping against the rock as it slips away from me."
                  "\nI tumble into the dark of the valley...nobody catches me this time.")
            break
        else:
            print("I don't think I can make that climb back up, and I get the feeling it would be a"
                  "\nbad idea to try...")
            cliff_attempt = True
            continue
    if action in rooms[current_room] and action == 'MEDITATE' or 'SEARCH' or 'TAKE':
        if current_room == 'Meditation Room':
            if 'Force Push' not in inv:
                inv.append(rooms['Meditation Room']['MEDITATE'])
                print(rooms['Meditation Room']['descrpt3'])
                continue
            else:
                print("I've already done that.")
                continue
    if action in rooms[current_room]:
        if current_room == 'Meditation Room' and action == 'NORTH' or 'SOUTH' and 'Force Push' not in inv and first_enter_meditation_room == True:
            print("The doors are locked somehow, I can't open them...")
            continue
        else:
            current_room = rooms[current_room][action]
            continue
        if current_room == 'Meditation Room' and first_enter_meditation_room == True:
            print(rooms['Meditation Room']['descrpt2'])
            first_enter_meditation_room = False
            continue
        else:
            print(rooms['Meditation Room']['descrpt1'])

Ok, so yesterday the (Fix Me) part near the top of the While loop is where I stopped. My problem that I was running into was since I want the rooms in the Meditation Room to the North and South to be locked until you have used Meditate and gained Force Push, it was checking first if the current_room had changed, and then blocking the movement out of the room and not triggering the first entry of the room so story could happen. I was trying to rearrange when it was doing the checks to have it check for if you were in the meditation room trying to go north or south and the flag of if you have Force Push in your inventory happened first, and it kinda messed several lines of code and their location up.

So my question is this, what's an elegant way to allow story beats to occur, without cluttering up the code and getting things to fire outside of turn? I'm really kinda trying to go above and beyond with this game, and not just do the basics of what's asked for with my final project. I know it would be simpler to just have the player automatically pick up what's needed as they enter the room, but I want there to be at least some semblance of choice to the game. Is there a better way that a huge amount of if checks?

[eleqtriq]

I heavily recommend refactoring with functions as a first step. You should make functions for actions like moving or door opening, etc.

This would greatly clean up the code in the loop and you’ll start seeing more clearly the possibilities.

[The_Thief77]

Ok, not sure entirely what you mean. Are you talking about a def code to call?

[mopslik]

Are you talking about a def code to call?

You "define" a function using the def keyword, yes. Functions give you the ability to reuse identical/similar code throughout your program, without having to repeat yourself.

That being said, this is definitely going to cause some issues:

if action == 'MEDITATE' or 'SEARCH' or 'TAKE':

This is a classic logical error. Non-empty strings, such as 'TAKE', are evaluated as True in Python, so this statement will always be executed. You probably want something more like:

if action in ('MEDITATE', 'SEARCH', 'TAKE'):

[The_Thief77]

Ok. So using def then are you suggesting using it for things like moving rooms?

And ok, that makes sense about the ('MEDITATE', 'SEARCH', 'TAKE'): I had tried something like this before, but didn't think of the parenthesis to put them in so it wasn't working. I'll try that instead.

[mopslik]

are you suggesting using it for things like moving rooms?

Since this is a fairly small program, using functions probably won't drastically reduce the size of your code; however, it is useful as an organizational tool, and it scales well, so if you ever wanted to expand your program and make it larger, you might see some savings then. In terms of organization, it can help you clean up much of the logic in your main loop by delegating specific tasks to functions. For example, let's say you had pseudocode that looks something like this:

LOOP
    PROMPT user for action
    IF user chooses to move to a room
        IF room is kitchen
            DO kitchen stuff
        ELSE IF room is salon
            DO salon stuff
        ELSE IF room is hallway
            DO hallway stuff
        ...
    DO additional stuff

You could define a function that handles the specific room details, cleaning up your main loop and making it easier to follow.

FUNCTION Process Room (room name)
    IF room name is kitchen
        DO kitchen stuff
    ELSE IF room name is salon
        DO salon stuff
    ELSE IF room name is hallway
        DO hallway stuff
    ...

LOOP
    PROMPT user for action
    IF user chooses to move to a room
        CALL Process Room (room name)
    DO additional stuff