Author: Markus M. Berg
These are the first steps for a new a project about learning Python with the help of some programming challenges. The levels will be created by various contributors.
Just start EscapeRoomWeb.py or use the batch file start.bat (on Windows) or start.sh (Linux). This will start a web server on http://localhost:5000 (not https!). Please open this URL in your web browser to start the game.
If Python is not in your system's path, you might need to use the complete path to Python.
On Windows, it's recommended to set the path to Python (e.g. C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\) in the PATH environment variable.
If you don't already have all the requirements installed, please do so by running pip install -r requirements.txt.
Currently, that's only Flask, so you can also install it manually via pip install flask.
Note: The Escape Room was initially created with Python 3.7.1 (64 bit) but should also work the newer versions. Latest tested version is 3.12.6. Hint: You may want to use a virtual environment to manage contradicting dependencies of different programs.
As a player you will have to develop little algorithms in Python with your favorite editor (which you store locally) to solve the challenges. For every level you have to create a .py-file with a method called run and one parameter. For the sake of simplicity you can use the existing solutions folder to save your code.
Minimal example without functionality:
def run(secret):
pass
The parameter can be called as you like, e.g. secret, data or input_data. The Escape Room environment will use it to pass the secret information defined in any room (see data in ExampleRoom) to your solution function. You can then create your algorithm that uses the secret as input and return the solution.
def run(secret):
solution = do_some_magic(secret)
return solution
You can then upload the .py-file and check your solution.
A room can consist of different levels. Consider each room a different game, while each level is a step towards solving the game.
As a developer you need to create new rooms and levels. All rooms are Python classes in the 'rooms' folder.
They should be derived from class EscapeRoom:
class AnotherRoom(EscapeRoom):
And they must have an init method with the following code:
def __init__(self):
super().__init__()
self.set_metadata("Your name", __name__)
self.add_level(self.create_level1())
self.add_level(self.create_level2())
# add more levels like above
Every level needs to return the following data structure:
return {"task_messages": task_messages, "hints": hints, "solution_function": self.first_letters, "data": secret}
- task_messages: description of the task the user has to work on; can consist of several steps
- hints: the user can request help messages that point him towards the correct solution
- solution_function: the function that will be called in order to verify the user's solution
- data: the secret/data that is passed to the solution_function as first parameter (e.g. if the user has to decode a secret, this is the secret that the user should work on. It makes sense to create these secrets dynamically so that the solution changes every time we run the game.)
Have a look at the existing classes as a reference.
If you want to display images, put them into folder /static and include them into the HTML page by adding <img src='static/secret.jpg'/> to the task_messages.
It is not needed to modify the Escape Room environment (i.e. EscapeRoom.py, EscapeRoomGame.py, EscapeRoomWeb.py, escape.css, escape.js, escape.html).