The assignment for this module requires you to produce a variation on the popular game of ‘hangman’.
In the basic game, the computer selects a word randomly from a maintained list and displays the word with the letters obscured. The user is invited to guess a letter. If the letter is present in the word, all occurrences of that letter are displayed. If the guessed letter is not present then a component of a picture of a ‘hanging man’ is added to the display. The object of the game is to reveal all letters of the word before the picture is complete.
The assignment requires an extended version of the game, which adds the following features:
Prior to the game starting, the user is prompted for their name. This is stored to a database table along with their best scores for a particular category and difficulty level (see below). Before they commence the game, their best score for the difficulty level and category is displayed.
Words are stored with difficulty and category information. Phrases are also permitted (multiple words separated by spaces). When the game commences, the human player is invited to select a difficulty level, and may elect to select words or phrases from a particular category or all categories. Example categories might be ‘First Names’, ‘Computing Terms’, ‘Football Teams’ etc.
Words and phrases may have a ‘clue’ associated with them. Players can elect to display a clue when they only have ONE guess remaining. This is visually indicated to the player.
An ‘administrative’ interface is provided to permit words and phrases to be added to the system under category headings. The difficulty of a particular word or phrase is automatically assessed through its length and the number of vowels that it contains (using a sensible algorithm). The administrative interface also allows the administrator to view the average scores of a selected player by category and difficulty level.
Guidance
The ‘hangman’ picture should be constructed using multiple Image components available within Access. Individual images can be invisible (visible=false) until a guess is incorrect. Pictures for the individual images can be constructed using MS Paint or a similar package. You may wish to defer this part of the assignment until you have completed work on components later in the module (meantime, simply count the incorrect guesses).
All of your work with underlying database tables must be completed programmatically, without using the data-binding features of Access. ONE exception to this rule is the reporting aspect of the problem for which your solution may construct SQL statements to query the database. Again, you will probably wish to defer this section of the problem until the relevant section of the course has been completed.