Mad Libs

Five answers from the user, poured into a story that was written with holes in it. Nothing here but variables and strings — and the + operator doing all the heavy lifting.

The program

print("The story machine needs five words. Choose recklessly.")
 
name = input("A friend's name: ")
animal = input("An animal: ")
adjective = input("A describing word: ")
food = input("A food: ")
number = input("A number: ")
 
story = name + " woke up to find a " + adjective + " " + animal
story = story + " in the kitchen. It had already eaten " + number
story = story + " plates of " + food + " and showed no sign of stopping."
 
print()
print("--- YOUR STORY ---")
print(story)
print("The end. Run me again for a different disaster.")

Read it before you run it

Predict in writing first — then run the program and grade yourself.

• Count the variables. Which lines create them, and which lines use them?
• The story is built in three steps. Say out loud what story holds after the second of the three story = lines.
• number is never converted with int(). Why does this program get away with that, when the guessing game could not?

Make it yours

1. One line. Extend the story with one more sentence that reuses a word the user already gave.
2. A few lines. Ask for a sixth word — a place, perhaps — and weave it into the story.
3. A real change. Write two different endings, then let random.randint(1, 2) and an if choose between them. The same words now tell different stories on different runs.

Curriculum connection

C1.3

identify various types of data and explain how they are used within programs

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C2.1

use variables, constants, expressions, and assignment statements to store and manipulate numbers and text in a program

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C3.1

analyze existing code to understand the components and outcomes of the code

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