Building a Small Project: Quiz Game

Put variables, loops, conditions and functions together to build a real game

Big Idea: Everything you have learned so far is a building block. In this topic we put them together, one step at a time, to build a complete quiz game: the computer asks questions, reads your answers, keeps a score, and tells you how you did. That is real programming!

By the end you will be able to:

ask a question and check the answer with input() and if,
keep a running score in a variable,
wrap the "ask one question" idea in a function that returns points,
use a for loop and a list to run the whole quiz.

1. The plan: input -> process -> output

A quiz game is just a loop of a very simple idea. For each question the computer does three things: ask (show the question and read your answer), check (is the answer correct?), and update (add a point if it was right). After all the questions, it shows your final score.

Think of a friendly game-show host with a stack of cards. They read a card, listen to your answer, tick a box if you are right, then reach for the next card. When the cards run out, they announce your score. Our program is that host.

For every question: ask, check, and update the score. When the questions run out, show the final score.

A big program is just small, familiar steps repeated in a loop. Build one step, test it, then add the next.

2. Step 1: one question with input and if

Let us start with the smallest possible quiz: a single question. input() shows a message and waits for the person to type. It always hands back what they typed as text (a string). We then compare that text with the correct answer using ==.

answer = input("What is 2 + 2? ")
if answer == "4":
    print("Correct!")
else:
    print("Wrong.")

Sample run (the person types 4):

What is 2 + 2? 4
Correct!

Because input() gives back text, we compare with the text "4" in quotes, not the number 4. The if line ends with a colon, and the lines that belong to it are indented.

Building a Small Project: Quiz Game