How to Code Rock, Paper, Scissors in Python: A Fun Game for Beginners

Rock, paper, scissors is a classic game that can be played between two players. The game involves making hand gestures representing rock, paper, or scissors. Each gesture beats another in a specific way - rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock.

In this Python code, we are going to implement the game for a single player against the computer.

First, we define a function called rock_paper_scissors(). Inside the function, we create a list of options for the computer to choose from - 'rock', 'paper', and 'scissors'.

Next, we ask the user for their choice by using the input() function. The user's input is stored in the user_choice variable.

After the user makes their choice, the computer selects a random option from the options list using the random.choice() function. The computer's choice is stored in the computer_choice variable.

Then, we print out the user's and the computer's choices using print().

Next, we compare the user's choice to the computer's choice to determine the winner. If the user's choice is the same as the computer's choice, we print out "It's a tie!". Otherwise, we use a series of conditional statements to determine the winner. For example, if the user chooses rock and the computer chooses scissors, we print out "You win!".

Finally, we call the rock_paper_scissors() function to play the game.

Here is the complete code:

import random

def rock_paper_scissors():
    options = ['rock', 'paper', 'scissors']
    user_choice = input("Enter your choice (rock/paper/scissors): ")
    computer_choice = random.choice(options)
    print("You chose: ", user_choice)
    print("Computer chose: ", computer_choice)
    if user_choice == computer_choice:
        print("It's a tie!")
    elif (user_choice == 'rock' and computer_choice == 'scissors') or \
         (user_choice == 'paper' and computer_choice == 'rock') or \
         (user_choice == 'scissors' and computer_choice == 'paper'):
        print("You win!")
    else:
        print("Computer wins!")

rock_paper_scissors()

Save this above code as rps.py and then execute the below code to play Rock, Paper and Scissors with Computer!

python3 rps.py

Playing this game is a fun way to practice using conditional statements and the random module in Python. You could also extend this game by adding a loop to allow the user to play multiple rounds or by creating a two-player version of the game.