Hangman Game in Python

Hangman is a classic word-guessing game. Its origins are not exactly known but it appears to date back to Victorian times. A player writes down the first and last letters of a word, and another player guesses the letters in between.

This article will show you how to create a simple Hangman game in Python. This is a great beginner project to practice programming logic and handling strings, loops, and conditions.

How the Game Works

1. The program randomly selects a word from a list of secret words.
2. The player has limited chances to guess the word.
3. When a correct letter is guessed, it is revealed in its correct position.
4. The player wins if all letters are guessed before running out of chances.
5. For simplicity, the program gives word length + 2 chances.

Example: If the secret word is mango (5 letters), the player gets 7 chances.

Implementation

import random
from collections import Counter

someWords = '''apple banana mango strawberry 
orange grape pineapple apricot lemon coconut watermelon 
cherry papaya berry peach lychee muskmelon'''
someWords = someWords.split(' ')

word = random.choice(someWords)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print('Guess the word! HINT: word is a fruit.')
    
    for _ in word:
        print('_', end=' ')
    print()

    letterGuessed = ''
    chances = len(word) + 2
    flag = 0

    try:
        while chances > 0 and flag == 0:
            print()
            chances -= 1

            try:
                guess = input('Enter a letter to guess: ').lower()
            except:
                print('Enter only a letter!')
                continue

            if not guess.isalpha():
                print('Enter only a letter!')
                continue
            elif len(guess) > 1:
                print('Enter only a single letter!')
                continue
            elif guess in letterGuessed:
                print('You already guessed that letter!')
                continue

            if guess in word:
                letterGuessed += guess * word.count(guess)

            for char in word:
                if char in letterGuessed:
                    print(char, end=' ')
                else:
                    print('_', end=' ')

            if Counter(letterGuessed) == Counter(word):
                print("\nCongratulations! You guessed the word:", word)
                flag = 1
                break

        if chances <= 0 and Counter(letterGuessed) != Counter(word):
            print('\nYou lost! The word was:', word)

    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        print('\nGame interrupted. Bye!')
        exit()

Output

Guess the word! HINT: word is a fruit.
_ _ _ _ _

Enter a letter to guess: m
m _ _ _ _
Enter a letter to guess: a
m a _ _ _
Enter a letter to guess: n
m a n _ _
Enter a letter to guess: g
m a n g _
Enter a letter to guess: o
m a n g o
Congratulations! You guessed the word: mango

Explanation:

• someWords.split(' '): Converts the string of words into a list.
• word = random.choice(someWords): Selects a random secret word for the game.
• chances = len(word) + 2: Sets number of chances based on word length.
• guess = input(...).lower(): Takes a single letter input from the player.
• if not guess.isalpha() ... Validates the input for letters only and uniqueness.
• letterGuessed += guess * word.count(guess): Adds correctly guessed letters to the guessed list.
• if chances <= 0 ... Ends the game if the player runs out of chances.

Try it yourself Exercises: 

• You can further enhance program by adding timer after every Guess
• You can also give hints from the beginning to make the task a bit easier for user
• You can also decrease the chance by one only if the player's guess is WRONG. If the guess is right, 
  player's chance is not reduced.