The JavaScript guessing game tutorial is a simple beginners project. It features modern JavaScript syntax and runs without a Framework. We have already built a foundation for our game in Part 1. In this part, we make it a little bit harder to guess the number.
Table of contents
A modern browser and a text editor. I recommend VS Code. Some knowledge of HTML and JavaScript would be beneficial but not required. For the sake of this guessing game tutorial, I am using a pre-compiled version of the Bulma Framework.
The latest JavaScript Guessing Game update has been released on 2nd November 2021.
Also available on GitHub
To build a JavaScript guessing game that generates a random number for the computer. Your job is to guess what that number is within 5 guesses.
If you are incorrect it will tell you if you need to go higher or lower. If you are correct it will confirm that you have won the jackpot. It will display how many guesses you had and refresh the page.
To start off I had a rough plan of what I was going to use. I decided to use session storage to record the random number and user guesses. Session storage data will remain temporary until exiting the browser.
Here is our rough pseudocode:
It’s a very simple HTML page with an input field, button and a few placeholder divs.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>JavaScript Guessing Game</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bulma@0.9.1/css/bulma.min.css">
<script src="js/guessing-game.js" defer></script>
</head>
<body>
<section class="hero is-success is-bold is-fullheight">
<div class="hero-body">
<div class="container">
<h2 class="title" id="message">Pick a number</h2>
<form class="form" id="guess-container">
<div class="field has-addons">
<div class="control is-expanded">
<input class="input is-large"
type="number"
min="1"
max="100"
id="guess"
placeholder="Number">
</div>
<div class="control">
<button id="btn" class="is-large button is-link">Submit</button>
</div>
</div>
</form>
<div class="tags" id="tags">Your guesses will display here</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
</body>
</html>First, we will need to grab the user input by attaching an event listener to the submit button.
/*
* Adds event listener to the submit button
*/document.getElementById("btn").addEventListener("click", (e) => {
e.preventDefault();
let userGuess = document.getElementById("guess"),
usrArr = [];
if (userGuess.value === "") {
alert("Please enter a number");
} else {
usrArr = ["user-guess", userGuess.value];
checkGuess(usrArr);
displayGuesses();
userGuess.value = "";
}
});We have assigned the variable, userGuess to the value of the input. If the guess is not empty the value gets stored in an array and passed to the checkGuess function.
The computer guess needs to be set when the browser first loads. It is also required to stay the same if the page is refreshed.
/**
* Executes on browser load. Saves computer guess to browser session if not set.
*/window.onload = () => {
let genGuess = randomNumber(1, 100),
arr = ["computer-guess", genGuess],
//Check to see if a session has been set
session = getSession(arr);
displayGuesses();
//If it hasn't generate a random number and store it
if (session === null) {
addToSession(arr);
}
};The randomNumber function.
let randomNumber = (min, max) => {
return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min) + min);
}Now we need to handle the session storage. Notes to remember: Session Storage can only accept strings! We will use the JSON.stringify() method to convert the object to a string.
We will also use JSON.parse() to convert it back when we grab the data. The getSession grabs all the information and is the most used function throughout.
/**
* Get data out of session storage
*
* @param {array}
*
* @return {object || null}
*/let getSession = (item) => {
let store = item[0],
data =
sessionStorage.getItem(store) !== null
? JSON.parse(sessionStorage.getItem(store))
: null;
return data;
};To add to the session and merge any existing data.
/**
* Stores data in sessionStorage. Merges data if already exists
*
* @param {array}
*/let addToSession = (item) => {
//Check if a session is set
let session = getSession(item),
data = [],
store = item[0],
saveData = item[1],
sessionData = [];
data.push(saveData);
// If the session return nothing
if (session === null) {
//create for the first time
sessionData = data;
} else {
//grab data and merge
session.push(data);
sessionData = session;
}
sessionStorage.setItem(store, JSON.stringify(sessionData.flat()));
};Once the submit button is clicked. The user guess is passed through the checkGuess function to compare both guesses for a match. If the guesses match a message is displayed. New to v1.1 – If you don’t guess it within 5 tries a message is displayed. Failing that a message will be displayed to guess higher or lower.
/**
* Checks the user submitted number against the generated one
*
* @param {array}
*
*/let checkGuess = (guess) => {
addToSession(guess);
// Get user generated number
let generatedNumber = getSession(["computer-guess", null]),
message = document.getElementById("message"),
total_guesses = countGuesses();
if (parseInt(guess[1]) === generatedNumber[0]) {
message.innerText =
"Jackpot, you won. You guessed it within " + total_guesses + " tries";
clearSession();
} else if (total_guesses === 5) {
message.innerText = "You lose, you have reached the maximum guesses.";
clearSession();
} else {
higherOrLower(message, guess[1], generatedNumber[0]);
}
};The following 3 functions are new to Version 1.1. They are pretty self-explanatory.higherOrLowercountGuessesclearSession
/**
* Checks to see if your number matches the computer one
*
* @param {string} num user guess
* @param {int} num2 computer guess
*
* @return {object} Insert message into parent container
*/let higherOrLower = (message, num, num2) => {
if (parseInt(num) > num2) {
message.innerText = "You need to go lower";
} else {
message.innerText = "You need to go higher";
}
};/**
* Counts the user guesses
*
* @return {int}
*/let countGuesses = () => {
let userGuess = getSession(["user-guess", null]),
guesses = userGuess !== null ? userGuess.length : 0;
return guesses;
};/**
* Starts a new game by clearing a session and reloading the page
*
*/let clearSession = () => {
setTimeout(() => {
sessionStorage.clear();
location.reload();
}, 10000);
};Finally the displayGuesses displays the guesses that you have made.
/**
* Displays the user guesses in a tag format
*
*/let displayGuesses = () => {
let guess = getSession(["user-guess", null]);
if (guess !== null) {
document.getElementById("tags").textContent = "";
guess.forEach((item) => {
let span = document.createElement("span"),
text = document.createTextNode(item);
span.classList.add("tag");
span.appendChild(text);
document.getElementById("tags").appendChild(span);
});
}
};Choose a number between 1 and 100.
Like I stated this was a very simple tutorial. Please feel free to fork the code and tweak it further. I will continue to add features to it. Please feel free to request other tutorials.
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