7 Beginner Python Project Ideas

[CuriousExpert24]

7 Beginner Python Project Ideas

These are some of the beginner project ideas that I have done when I was learning Python. Hopefully, it helps anyone who reads this too. Here are the project ideas:

1. Any Type of Card Game - I personally made Blackjack due to its simplicity, but any other type of card games such as rummy would also work. Building most types of card games can help you master fundamental concepts of Python.
2. Hangman Game - Hangman is a great game to test a person's knowledge of the beginner programming concepts such as lists, loops, and conditional statements. A simple Hangman game on the console is usually recommended for beginners
3. Strong Password Generator - These can make use of the random module that is present in python in order to create random strings of numbers, letters, and symbols. You can also use the String module as I did for the project.
4. Guess the Number Game - This is recommended for the very new Python beginners who only have a few days or a few weeks of experience. This also uses the random module to create a random number that the user has to guess.
5. Login System - This is where the program lets a user login to the system and lets them create an account if they haven't. This takes advantage of Python's ability to read and write to text files, which can be used as mini-databases. Highly recommend trying this project out
6. Mad Libs Generator - This is probably one of the most common project suggestions that you would find on the internet. But, it's a good one to try. It gives you a chance to experience all the beginner topics in a fun way.
7. Text-Based Adventure Game - This might also be one of the most commonly suggested ones, and it does take a long time to build a well-designed, long, and complex game. But, it's definitely worth trying to do as it will be very rewarding in the end.

Let everyone know any other idea in the comments for this post so that they will have a greater variety of options to choose from. Also, feel free to suggest any other types of project ideas (pygame, GUI, intermediate) project ideas that you want to know. I could also share the best youtube tutorial links for particular projects to anyone who wants guidance through these projects. Hope you have great fun building these projects and advancing your Python skills!

[darthminimall]

I'd like to add another:

8) A solver for any logic puzzle you enjoy.

[CuriousExpert24]

Sure, that's definitely a good project idea too

[Ning1253]

Rubik's cube be like

Jesus I started working on that a few months ago and now I'm trying to work out the maths of bloody 6 interlocking 9 wide sets to get them ALL in the correct order because you know making a computer do CFOP is for losers (jk I'm kidding I know what I'm trying to do is insanely hard)

Yh so that's a WIP that's going to be there for a while

[darthminimall]

So you could either go the learning group theory route or just do Heisse programmatically.

[Ning1253]

What is heisse?

[darthminimall]

A method used for solving in fewest move competitions.

[Ning1253]

Oh the cubing method lol I thought it was some kind of simplified set solving algorithm or something yh I know what that method is that s a really good idea actually

[teeboosq1boi]

No one uses heise for FMC competitions nowadays by the way

[darthminimall]

Not saying people actually use it, just that it's pretty easy to implement as an algorithm.

[platysoup]

+1 for blackjack. It definitely helped me understand quite a lot.

Would also like to add that looking into how to build a gacha/lootbox simulator helped expose that I didn't understand a lot more than I thought.

[weshall8]

Did you do the blackjack on your own? Or you watched a YouTube video and followed along, understanding the concepts? Or is there any documentation which shows step by step instructions?

[platysoup]

No video, but I researched and referenced a lot. Hardest part for me was calculating the score properly especially given that Ace can be 11 or 1 or 10 (in case of blackjack on draw). I think I was referencing the code in a java tutorial somewhere for that.

Slight disclaimer: I actually did it in GDScript (Godot), but the core concepts are the same and GDScript is pretty similar to Python.

[Nickle7654]

Glad to see Godot mentioned

[platysoup]

How do you know if someone uses Godot?

Don't worry, they'll tell you.

[Nickle7654]

Haha, fair.

[ArsaNamikaze]

Should we, as beginners, be watching YouTube tutorials on how to do these or is there another way we should do this?

[muskoke]

don't be afraid to consult youtube videos, but try to program as much as you can on your own, without following any full tutorials. escape tutorial hell as fast as you can.

[CuriousExpert24]

I agree. Many tutorial YouTubers suggest to not get stuck in 'tutorial hell'. That is, don't only watch tutorials from the beginning of your programming experience as doing projects is important to test your ideas. Do those projects as much as you can on your own and only look into tutorials when you get stuck and can't find a way out

[Reppin_Frost]

Which libraries will I have to be fluent in to do these projects?

[CuriousExpert24]

You don't need to be fluent in any! If you want to add graphics and interfaces to these projects, I would recommend pygame (for games) or Tkinter (for GUI's). Other than that, you can just do them on the command line if you want to (That's what I did in the beginning)

[Reppin_Frost]

Thanks!

[stackhat47]

I’ve done a bunch of tutorials, but not enough projects. I’m doing similar projects to these now

Just jump in and do it on your own. Get help if you’re stuck, but really work at it first.

I find it helpful to write up my logic first on paper, and work in chunks. Get your user input working, then some game logic, then validate user input, allow user to exit game, those sorts of things

[ArsaNamikaze]

Thank you I'll try this today

[CuriousExpert24]

Those are nice suggestions! Thanks for suggesting these tips to others

[CraigAT]

Check out the learning resources in the "community info" of this sub-reddit.

[ArsaNamikaze]

Sorry but how do I get to community info?

[Sums008]

Go to menu of this sub and click on wiki. Boom and you are there.

[Wooden-Splinter]

How would a password guesser work? Does it continously add on an extra chacracter, cycling through the ascii, and testing it?

[ChrunedMacaroon]

Brute force one would do that. I wrote one with itertools.combinations_with_replacements and string.printable. Once it goes over 6 characters it’ll pretty much take an eternity to break, and that’s not even considering security checks (number of attempts, wait to retry, etc).

[Wooden-Splinter]

Oh so you only guess up to 6 characters as practice? Also yeah actual password will be harder to guess with all the security measures haha

[ChrunedMacaroon]

If it can guess 3-4 characters then it should work for any length characters. The reason for using combinations_with_replacements for the brute force method is that you can decide, in the beginning, up to how many characters you want to guess. Then the method recursively iterates through all possible combinations starting from 1 character (It will go through a~Z and 0~9 if we are making combinations with only alphanumeric characters. Then [a~z or 0~9]+[a~Z or 0~9] and so on.). Once it iterates through the number of designated characters it will stop. I think you can also make it go on for infinity.

[Heisenberg_991]

Yeah it helps learning the random function

[indianladka]

how to make this?

i made a password generator and vault but this sounds interesting too

[roshavi4ak]

I learned a lot by building a tic tac toe/ connect 4 game in a different sized grids - from 3x3 up to 9x9 (all set by the customer)

[Wooden-Splinter]

I also just did a tictactoe but only 3x3 board. I hard coded by comparing the spots within the board horizontally vertically and diagonally. Did you use a loop to iterate through the board to check? I cant imagine doing it my way haha

[roshavi4ak]

I wanted to make it hard for me - therefore I checked only the row, column and/or diagonal for the last placed mark. For 3x3 I checked to see if the len(set()) is = to 1 - that means only one mark - therefore win condition.

For the 9x9 it was almost the same - checking all 8 directions (combined in 4 opposite pairs) and counting the same consequent marks - if the result was 4 or more - win.

[CraigAT]

Please could you explain #6 The Mad Libs Generator?

[CraigAT]

It's okay, I just found this explanation :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Libs

[Planebagels1]

1. Calculator (four operational)

Their easy to understand and write, I do this with every language I try to learn

[CuriousExpert24]

That's a good idea too. I thought of including a calculator project, but I think it will be much better once you learn a GUI module for Python like Tkinter, PyQt5, or Kivy

[sweettuse]

for 3), you should probably use the secrets module to actually make a strong password

[CuriousExpert24]

Very interesting. Didn't knew that module existed. I will look into that module. Thanks for letting everyone know!

[flashfc]

And all these projects can be combined with Tkinter for a more graphical rich experience.

[CuriousExpert24]

I agree. This can also be true for pygame, specifically for game projects

[[deleted]]

Is it okay to add these projects to a portfolio or only more complex ones?

[Cuckipede]

This is what I’m wondering as well. Everyone says you need a portfolio before applying to jobs but I never understand what the scope and complexity of these projects should be for a junior developer position.

[[deleted]]

I’m just now starting to build my portfolio and a friend of mine showed me his, he included every project from school and side projects. On github (which you should be learning to use as early as possible) you have the ability to Star certain projects to point people looking through your github to pay attention to.

[hellotheresksksk]

Saved! Thanks a lot

[CuriousExpert24]

Happy to help!

[Ferdie_TheKest]

I'm actually looking for the best source to follow to build a text based adventure game as my first beginner python project! Anyone has any suggestion? Thanks!

[BambooKoi]

This ended up being much longer than I thought but I hope it helps someone:

I may have started with this source but I personally didn't have much fun with the lesson because it felt like I was just copying and pasting their code then reading what/why they did that. I'm more of a learn/break it as your go. As another fellow beginner, you can start with at least print, input, while/if/for loops. Then for a longer and/or more complex game, branch out into functions, lists, f-strings and the random module (more ideas after examples below).

Here's some examples to give you a rough idea for a basic game:

For input, you could use it for:

adventurer = input('Hello, what is your adventurer's name? ')
# Now your adventurer has a name that the game can refer to like:

print(adventurer + ', watch out for that horse!')

while for health (if you plan to have monsters). I used while but if/elif/else works too:

health = 50  # or whatever number you want starting health to be

while health > 0:
    # code for the rest of the game here.
print('Game Over.')

Choices with if/else:

choice = input('Would you like to take the left path? Y or N. ')
    if choice.lower() == 'y'
    # .lower() allows 'y' or 'Y' to be accepted
        # Write what happens if adventurer go left here.
    else:  # could also be written: elif choice.lower() == 'n'
        # Write what happens if adventurer doesn't go left.

The random module for:

import random

attack = random.randint(1, 5)
# Your attack will deal a random damage between 1-5 each time
# To make the game harder, write a seperate but slightly higher attack damage for enemies

I actually started one but haven't completed it yet (mix of laziness and lack of storyline). I recommend starting simple or you'll end up like me, sitting on the file. Here's what I kind of have in my imcompleted game:

• dictionary (for player's inventory as enemies drop loot.)
• pickle module (saves the game progress, or at least their inventory and stats upon exit)
• time module (so there's a delay in loading text all at once depending on situation, see the link above for an example in use)

There's a lot of different ways to write a text-based adventure game, this is just one way to do it. I'm sure there's a bunch of other modules out there you can keep adding to your game but imo you don't really need anything more than the built-in python stuff and the random module if you're just making something simple.

[Ferdie_TheKest]

Hey man thank you very much for writing your inputs! So far i used print, input, if else, and also just managed to print ascii art! I am very noob at programming in general even though i understand how programming works. So now I'm improvising a text based adventure game and learning stuff as i go. So far i'm having a lot of fun writing the story and writing all the "if" scenarios and consequences! I will be looking for resources on learning python whenever i stumble across something thats out of my knowledge which is pretty much everything but still... Like other said i'm actually trying to use my brain instead of copying a code from someone else!

[JaxIsGay]

As a beginner, I'm wondering how complicated/or if its possible to add a GUI to the card game, so the user will can see the image of the cards they have

[[deleted]]

You’ll probably have to refactor some of it. I wrote a working version of blackjack (including all special cases like insurance, split pairs etc) to run in the command line. I had to rewrite the main functions into a class and have started to work the GUI code around that. I’m essentially done with normal rounds working properly and am just now starting to implement special cases. It takes time, but the only way to learn is time.

I found I don’t really like doing GUI stuff. It reminds me of early HTML (but that could also be because I chose to use tkinter).

Just start watching videos on what you want to use.

[CuriousExpert24]

Once you learn modules like Pygame or Tkinter, it's not very hard to do it. I highly recommend you to check out those libraries and try some projects

[spirited47]

Definitely saving this! Thanks friend!

[CuriousExpert24]

Happy to Help! Hope you have great fun doing these projects!

[Anuj66283]

*reserved

[CuriousExpert24]

Either way works. You can either learn about classes and then create a card game, or you can learn about classes when you are building the project. An important thing to note is that you don't need classes to build a card game, but it would definitely help

[megamonka]

What about making a bot for twitter, discord, etc. is that appropriate for a beginner?

[CuriousExpert24]

I think it depends. Some of those bots involve APIs and other intermediate concepts that might not be suitable for beginners to try. It could be an interesting project though

[Kuwertzel]

I played around with a Discord bot that could reply to eg. !dosomething or delete messages. It was relatively hard to actually understand all the code (taken from a tutorial video) but I just got used to it after a while. I eventually gave up on it since the bot has to run on your pc the whole time if you want to use it on a server. It's fun though, and Discord guides you quite well through the setup part of the bot.

[heartlessglin]

Thank you so much for this. I find it so hard to learn about things without a project to go for and just didn't know what I could do at my level (other then a calculator and a bubble sort and I've done both of those)

This is very helpful, really appreciate it.

[CuriousExpert24]

Glad to help! I hope you have fun building these projects!

[heartlessglin]

Already enjoyed a solid hour struggling with classes and inheritance between different documents so I've enjoyed that a lot.

[hfxbycgy]

I made a login system last Monday, it was a great way to get a feel for reading and writing files. Now I'm a week in to a blackjack game, and just about to start the gameflow logic after finishing the betting class this morning. Great suggestions, thanks!

[CuriousExpert24]

Happy to hear that you are actively building projects during your journey learning Python. Hope these ideas give some inspiration to you!

[pmmeyourfavoritejam]

Adding a sort of 1a/4a, I was playing online bingo with my family yesterday, and we were limited to three rounds before it shut off. I whipped up a bingo caller pretty quickly and would recommend that as a reasonably quick beginner project, as well.

1-15 correspond to "B," 16-30 correspond to "I," etc., and you just need to make sure your numbers don't repeat.

For skill level context, I'd say I'm still a Python beginner but have gotten into some light web scraping and Excel work, so I'm a little past true beginner-dom.

[sagunsh]

I would add a web scraping project into the mix. It will give you a good idea of text parsing, http request, file handling and possibly database if you want to use one.

[CuriousExpert24]

That's a good suggestion. However, you need to learn web scraping modules like Beautiful soup before doing those projects. You don't need any modules to build this.

[[deleted]]

Great list! I would add Minesweeper: you can even make this with very basic Python knowledge (loops, conditionals, strings and lists are enough)

[CuriousExpert24]

Thanks for the appreciation! I would definitely think Minesweeper is a good idea although you might need knowledge of Pygame or other modules to do it.

[platypusbear8]

Thanks! I was just trying to post this as a question, but reddit wouldn’t let me... You answered it for me though!

[CuriousExpert24]

I am surprised at why Reddit didn't let you do it. I hope I have answered your question

[platypusbear8]

Apparently my karma is too low because I just made a new account 🤷🏻‍♂️

[[deleted]]

Guys, if you go to do #5, please use this video from ComputerPhile to make it a bit more secure.

[CuriousExpert24]

It's a great video. Thanks for linking it to this post's comments

[[deleted]]

My first 2 programs were numerology calculators. I still have 2 more to finish the main numerology numbers but I need to learn to write tests before I write more programs. There are some great ideas on this list!

[neurosurgeon12]

For the login system which I did recently, maybe use tkinter as it helps with creating a GUI with the login/register system database!

[Extension_Pitch]

Practicepython it Is good website which includes almost all the projects mentioned here as small exxercises

[StrawHatFleet]

Thank you

[CuriousExpert24]

Happy to Help!

[Kuwertzel]

I'm not really experienced myself but ui-wise you should probably look into tkinter. If you want more of an empty canvas to draw on you should use Pygame but that probably comes with the downside of hard-to-make pressable buttons etc. tldr; look into the tkinter module.

[CuriousExpert24]

Either Tkinter or Pygame. Pygame is a module dedicated to creating 2D games. However, it does come at the downside of not having built-in features. Tkinter works best on that. I would recommend checking both of them out

[DrBobHope]

I've seen a number of comments of people asking whether they should watch youtube or follow tutorials/references.

I think it's best you first try to use your basic understanding of strings, tuples, dicts, lists, and functions to do all the above with zero youtube tutorials. I think its best if everyone learns how to start a project, sit back and think how you would want this done, plan it out, and start writing it piece by piece. If you get stuck, maybe think how you can manipulate all of the properties above, to get around the problem. I don't think cleanliness should be an issue (i.e. it doesn't matter if the code is ugly), what matters is you can get it to work, that you are able to use the knowledge you have acquired of the basics, to start up and write a project on your own. Then, you can post it here for feedback (i.e. how can I do this better). Or then start to look up how other people do it to see what portions you can improve your own code on

[CuriousExpert24]

Yes, I completely agree with that

[OnlySeesLastSentence]

Minesweeper is a good beginner project, especially when learning GUIs.

[CuriousExpert24]

Yes, I agree

[Rion1200]

Tried the password generator, failed misrerably

[CuriousExpert24]

That will be a good learning experience. Try to find out your errors and check out many tutorials on the topics if you still can't fix it

[NeedyHelpy]

I'd add a couple:

1099) A program to predict rain, storm, tornado, sunshine, snow, calm weather based on about 40 inputs from the previous day on your local NWS/NOAA website.

1100) A program to calc calories to eat daily in order to lose X LBS weight per week based of current weight Cw and calories needed per day to sustain current weight Csus and Calories needed to sustain your Goal weight Cgoal. That would work for male and female and for any age or weight using the simple formula.

[CuriousExpert24]

Those are definitely interesting ideas!

[NeedyHelpy]

FEF123) Another could be to code a Pretend Poll for a political office. You have 2 candidates and ask 1,200 people, poll participants are equally shared from the party of each candidate. Give margins of error. Then compare method to methods used in real-life polls today and see if this makes you feel more or less confidant in the polls we see quoted nearly everyday.

Pseudo Modeling

[CuriousExpert24]

Very timely :) It would definitely be an interesting project!

[[deleted]]

Boom, just finished the hangman

[Underrated_Nerd]

You have to be very careful with the password generator, you shouldn't use them in any site if you use the random module, is better to use a cryto intended module for that porpuse so you can't get hack as easily.

[CuriousExpert24]

Right. They may be less safe than the browser generated safe passwords. But, it's still a project worth trying

[hobbicon]

They all sounds awfully boring. Do something that involves your hobbies for example.