The completed method:
private static int RollDie()
{
//set up a return value
int returnValue = 0;
//seed the random function to ensure randomness
Random rnd = new Random(Guid.NewGuid().GetHashCode());
//populate the returnvalue
returnValue = rnd.Next(1, 7);
//return the new random integer value
return returnValue;
}
If you started by declaring the random variable like this:
Random rnd = new Random();
You probably noticed that your results weren't very random. This is because the random function uses the computers clock to "seed" it's random number. This means two random variables delcared microseconds from each other will most likely be the same. The problem is easily fixed by just seeding the random with something that guarentees its random. The GUID (guaranteed unique id) returns a random 37 character string that looks something like {20380a36-8777-43f7-a79e-65bdb53f4621}. The GUID is guaranteed to be unique within 4 billion instances. Then we call the GetHashCode() method which converts the GUID into an integer that we can use to seed the random method.
In our message to the user we tell them to press enter to roll again or to press q to quit. In the while statement our condition is wrong. It reads "while the user input is anything but q" quit the application. We need to change the == to != (equal to not equal). The completed while loop should look like this:
do
{
Console.WriteLine("Dice 1 rolled a: {0}", RollDie());
Console.WriteLine("Dice 2 rolled a: {0}", RollDie());
Console.WriteLine("Press enter to roll again or type q for quit");
} while (Console.ReadLine() != "q");
These will be broken out into branches MoreInteractive1, MoreInteractive2, and MoreInteractive3
After looking at our application I realized it needed a little more pizazz, time to break out the old ASCII art skills. I figured I could make something from just text that looked like a close approximation of a die. Each dice would have three lines. I used brackets for the sides and a lowercase “o” for the pip. The one would look something like:
[ ]
[ o ]
[ ]
Using that as an example I created a dictionary (integer and string) to hold my dice. The dictionary looks like the following code:
var die = new Dictionary<int, string>
{
{ 1, "[ ]\n[ o ]\n[ ]" },
{ 2, "[ ]\n[ o o ]\n[ ]" },
{ 3, "[ o ]\n[ o o ]\n[ ]" },
{ 4, "[ o o ]\n[ ]\n[ o o ]" },
{ 5, "[ o o ]\n[ o ]\n[ o o ]" },
{ 6, "[ o o ]\n[ o o ]\n[ o o ]" },
};
Keep in mind that the \n produces a new line. Now I had a variable that contained a graphical representation of all 6 dice all I need was a way to pull two of them out at random. This time it was LINQ to the rescue. I used the orderby statement with a giud to reorder the whole list randomly and then just grab the top 2 dice from the list.
var shuffled = die.OrderBy(x => Guid.NewGuid()).Take(2);
foreach (KeyValuePair<int, string> i in shuffled)
{
Console.WriteLine(i.Value);
Console.WriteLine();
}
Console.WriteLine("Press enter to roll again or type q for quit");
This is better, but they still don’t look too much like real dice.
I remembered from my old DOS days that there are some characters that were designed to draw boxes on a console screen. Per something I read online it looked like the first thing I needed to do was set the encoding for the console so I could get to these extra characters. So, I added the following line to the top of my program:
Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
Then I could swap out my brackets and o’s with something that looked better:
var die = new Dictionary<int, string>
{
{ 1, "┌─────────┐\n│ │\n│ ○ │\n│ │\n└─────────┘" },
{ 2, "┌─────────┐\n│ │\n│ ○ ○ │\n│ │\n└─────────┘" },
{ 3, "┌─────────┐\n│ ○ │\n│ ○ ○ │\n│ │\n└─────────┘" },
{ 4, "┌─────────┐\n│ ○ ○ │\n│ │\n│ ○ ○ │\n└─────────┘" },
{ 5, "┌─────────┐\n│ ○ ○ │\n│ ○ │\n│ ○ ○ │\n└─────────┘" },
{ 6, "┌─────────┐\n│ ○ ○ │\n│ ○ ○ │\n│ ○ ○ │\n└─────────┘" },
};
Now I had something that looked a lot more like actual dice.
It was time to see if I could make it even better. For one thing, I wanted to put both the dice together instead of on top of each other and I wanted to hear dice rolling before the dice were displayed. I also realized something else after looking at my dictionary there were only a few strings needed to make up each die. I decided to refactor my code and change the way my dictionary was created. So now my code looked something like:
string top = "┌───────────┐";
string zero = "│ │";
string one = "│ ○ │";
string two = "│ ○ ○ │";
string bottom = "└───────────┘";
string[] dieFace1 = { top, zero, zero, one, zero, zero, bottom };
string[] dieFace2 = { top, zero, zero, two, zero, zero, bottom };
string[] dieFace3 = { top, zero, one, zero, two, zero, bottom };
string[] dieFace4 = { top, zero, two, zero, two, zero, bottom };
string[] dieFace5 = { top, zero, two, one, two, zero, bottom };
string[] dieFace6 = { top, zero, two, two, two, zero, bottom };
var die = new Dictionary<int, string[]>
{
{1, dieFace1},
{2, dieFace2},
{3, dieFace3},
{4, dieFace4},
{5, dieFace5},
{6, dieFace6},
};
I needed each part (top, bottom, middle) of the dice to be created without line breaks since I was going to place both dice next to each other horizontally. This change would also make it easy for me to change how the dice looked in the future since all I’d need to do is alter the top, zero, one, two and bottom variables. Next I wanted to play a sound of rolling dice before I displayed the dice to the user. I could have done it by just referencing an external sound file, but I decided to add the sound file to my application as a resource. Adding resources is something that is done easily and often in windows applications. I right-clicked the project, opening properties and clicked on the resources tab. Then I clicked the “Add Resource” dropdown and selected “Add Existing File”. Once that was done a quick search on Stack Overflow gave me the code example I needed to play the embedded sound file. I decided to put it in a method like this:
private static void PlayDiceRollSound()
{
Stream str = Properties.Resources.ShakeAndRollDiceSound;
SoundPlayer sp = new SoundPlayer(str);
sp.Play();
}
The sound file itself takes about 2 and half seconds to play so I added in a small delay to allow the sound file to play before the dice were displayed. This was easy to do with the “Sleep” method:
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(2500);
Now I decided to go back and use my original “RollDice()” method. I thought it made the code easier to read if I just created the roll result as integers and then used those integers to draw the dice.
int dieOneRoll = RollDie();
int dieTwoRoll = RollDie();
Now I have my two random numbers between 1 and 6. Each dice is just an array of 7 strings that make up the face of the die. So all I need to do is get the dice face from the dictionary using the roll result as the index.
string[] firstDie = die[dieOneRoll];
string[] secondDie = die[dieTwoRoll];
I have two string arrays that represent the face of each die, all that’s left is to print them on screen one line at a time with both dice.
for (int i = 0; i < 7; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine($"{firstDie[i]} {secondDie[i]}");
}
Since each die face is 7 lines it loops 7 times to assemble the dice. Lastly, I decided that it would be more fun if I added a message based on the dice that were rolled. I created a method called “FeedBack” which takes the roll result as input and prints a special message based on the input.
private static void FeedBack(int DieOneRoll, int DieTwoRoll)
{
if (DieOneRoll == 6 && DieTwoRoll == 6)
{
Console.WriteLine("BOXCARS!");
}
else if (DieOneRoll == 1 && DieTwoRoll == 1)
{
Console.WriteLine("OH NO SNAKE EYES!");
}
else if (DieOneRoll == DieTwoRoll)
{
Console.WriteLine("DOUBLES SWEET!");
}
}
Now my dice rolling app is complete and a little more interesting that just the plain text version.