How to make a text based game in java?
I'm trying to make a text-based game and I think I've got a good start. However, this code seems a little clunky and I'm pretty sure there is a better way of doing most things in the code. I am very new to coding.
package text.based.adventure;
import java.util.*;
public class TextBasedAdventure {
public static String Name;
public static int HP;
public static int maxHP;
public static int xp;
public static int atk;
public static int def;
public static int lvl;
public static int potion;
static Random rand = new Random();
static Scanner UI = new Scanner(System.in);
public static int dam = rand.nextInt(6) + 1;
public static int heal = rand.nextInt(6) + 1;
public static void room2() {
}
public static void StartRoom() throws InterruptedException {
String input;
System.out.println("The room is dark and gloomy, it reeks of dead corpses and rotten food,");
System.out
.println("You look behind you, the skeleton you recently killed and the damaged map are on the floor");
System.out.println("the only choice no is to move forward");
System.out.println("avail commands: forward, heal");
input = UI.nextLine();
if (input.equals("heal")) {
potion = potion - 1;
HP = maxHP;
System.out.print("You are now at max HP, HP=" + HP);
Thread.sleep(2000);
StartRoom();
} else if (input.equals("forward")) {
room2();
} else {
System.out.print("Please Choose A Valid Command");
Thread.sleep(2000);
StartRoom();
}
}
public static void combatskel() throws InterruptedException {
int skeldam = rand.nextInt(3) + 1;
String input;
int haskell;
hpskel = 5;
if (HP <= 0) {
gameover();
}
if (hpskel <= 0) {
System.out.println("You Defeated A Skeleton");
atk = atk + 1;
def = def + 1;
maxHP = maxHP + 1;
System.out.format("You Have Levelled Up! atk is now %d, def is now %d, HP is now %d", atk, def, HP);
System.out.println("");
return;
}
while (hpskel > 0) {
input = UI.nextLine();
if (input.equals("attack")) {
haskell = hpskel - dam - atk;
HP = HP - skeldam;
System.out.format("You Have Been Hit, Your HP is %d", HP);
System.out.println("");
combatskel();
} else if (input.equals("heal")) {
if (potion <= 0) {
System.out.println("You Do Not Have Enough Potions");
combatskel();
} else {
HP = HP + heal;
System.out.println("You Have Been Healed");
System.out.format("You Have Been Hit, Your HP is %d", HP);
System.out.println("");
HP = HP - skeldam;
Thread.sleep(1200);
System.out.format("You Have Been Hit, Your HP is %d", HP);
System.out.println("");
combatskel();
}
}
}
}
public static void combatzombie() throws InterruptedException {
System.out.println("You Have Encountered a zombie");
int zombdam = rand.nextInt(3) + 2;
String input;
int hpzomb;
hpzomb = 7;
if (HP <= 0) {
gameover();
}
if (hpzomb <= 0) {
System.out.println("You Defeated A Zombie");
atk = atk + 1;
def = def + 1;
maxHP = maxHP + 1;
System.out.format("You Have Levelled Up! atk is now %d, def is now %d, HP is now %d", atk, def, HP);
System.out.println("");
return;
}
while (hpzomb > 0) {
input = UI.nextLine();
if (input.equals("attack")) {
hpzomb = hpzomb - dam - atk;
HP = HP - zombdam;
System.out.format("You Have Been Hit, Your HP is %d", HP);
System.out.println("");
combatzombie();
} else if (input.equals("heal")) {
if (potion <= 0) {
System.out.println("You Do Not Have Enough Potions");
combatzombie();
} else {
HP = HP + heal;
System.out.println("You Have Been Healed");
System.out.format("You Have Been Hit, Your HP is %d", HP);
System.out.println("");
HP = HP - zombdam;
Thread.sleep(1200);
System.out.format("You Have Been Hit, Your HP is %d", HP);
System.out.println("");
combatzombie();
}
}
}
}
public static void gameover() {
System.out.println(Name + " Died!");
System.out.println("GAME OVER!");
System.exit(0); // terminates if lost
}
/**
* @param args
* the command line arguments
* @throws java.lang.InterruptedException
*/
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
maxHP = 20;
potion = 3;
System.out.println("Welcome To Dungeon Maze");
System.out.println("Please Input Your Name ");
Name = UI.nextLine();
System.out.format("%s is a brave adventurer", Name);
System.out.println("");
Thread.sleep(3000);
System.out.println("They were sent on a task to check on one of");
Thread.sleep(3000);
System.out.println("the sacred underground shrines of Port Nyanzaru,");
Thread.sleep(3000);
System.out.format("but when one of the skeletons knocked off the map %s had,", Name);
System.out.println("");
Thread.sleep(3000);
System.out.println("they had no choice but to try and escape the dungeon");
Thread.sleep(3000);
System.out.println("ARE YOU READY BRAVE ADVENTURER");
HP = maxHP;
lvl = 1;
def = 1;
atk = 1;
Thread.sleep(5000);
StartRoom();
}
}
The answer to your question - How to make a text based game in java is -
The first thing about your code that looked, as you put it, "clunky" to me was all those static variables in the beginning. The problem with this approach is that static variables are, in a way, global variables, but most of the variables you define at the beginning of your code are merely properties of the player. Now, as it is, this might not seem like a problem, because your class TextBasedAdventure is not inside any context whatsoever, so "global" and "property of the player" might not seem like irreconcilable characteristics, but it makes your code very inflexible, in case you want to modify your program in any way, be it reorganising the code, or extending the functionality of the program, or refining the code that modifies the player's properties. In fact, even in the current state of your code, I can think of a disadvantage of making all these variables static: Unlike all the other variables, the player's name never changes, which means that the variable Name would lend itself to being declared final. However, this is not possible if the variable is static, because then its value would already have to be defined at compile time, meaning that it would be impossible for the user to input a name. So I suggest creating a Player class and making all these properties instance variables of Player.
The code to level up or heal the player is littered over the methods StartRoom(), combatskel() and combatzombie(), which not only causes code duplication, but also defies the Single Responsibility Principle (in this case, this would mean that, for example, the method combatskel() is only responsible for fighting a skeleton, and not for the implementation details of levelling up the player. I suggest making levelUp and heal methods of their own, which you can then simply call from within StartRoom(), combatskel() and combatzombie() without having to repeat the code that actually does the levelling up. In case you do create a Player class, then it would seem natural to make heal() and levelUp() instance methods of Player.
On to the method StartRoom(): You are calling this method from within itself, or, to put it another way, you are calling it recursively, which I don't think represents what the method is actually supposed to do. After all, the player doesn't re-enter the starting room, but it's just that the user is prompted again for input. So a better solution would be to put the code prompting the user for input into a loop that continues until the user enters "forward".
The methods combatskel() and combatzombie() are broken. The problem is that, again, you are calling these methods recursively, but in this case, this recursion causes a new skeleton/zombie to be spawned, because its health points are a local variable that is assigned at the beginning of the method. In fact, the if (hpskel <= 0) condition will never be true, because at this point, haskel will always be five, no matter how deep in the recursion tree you are. This means that the method will end up calling itself until the player's health points reach 0, because before while (hpskel > 0) can be evaluated again after the first attack, we go one level deeper in the recursion tree, i.e. another skeleton/zombie is spawned, and so on. A solution to this problem would be to put everything in a loop instead, like I already suggested when reviewing the method StartRoom(). To illustrate what I mean, here a simplified version of your code:
void combatzombie() {
zombieHP = 5; //a zombie is spawned
zombieHP--; //we attack the zombie, its HP are now 4
combatzombie(); //this does not attack the zombie again, but spawns
//a new zombie with 5 HP and attacks that zombie.
}
Instead, we need this:
void combatzombie() {
zombieHP = 5; //a zombie is spawned
while (zombieHP > 0) { //we repeatedly attack this
zombieHP--; //zombie until its HP reach 0,
} //no other zombie is spawned
}
Also, the methods combatskel() and combatzombie() contain a lot of common code. It would be better to put this common code in one place, and only put that which is specific for a skeleton or a zombie (i.e. the health points, the damage and the name of the monster) into the methods combatskel() and combatzombie(). For example, you could write a method combatMonster(String name, int health, int damage), and call this method from within combatskel() and combatzombie():
void combatskel() {
combatMonster("skeleton", 5, rand.nextInt(3) + 1);
}
void combatzombie() {
combatMonster("zombie", 7, rand.nextInt(3) + 2);
}Finally, a general remark about naming conventions: A lot of your code does not follow Java naming conventions. For example the field Name (fields conventionally start with lowercase letters), the method StartRoom() (methods conventionally start with lowercase letters as well), combatzombie() (a new word within a variable/method/class/whatever name should start with a capital letter, which is also known as "camel case").