How to make the use user input to create an instance of a class?

Question

I'm making a text-based adventure game in python and would like the user to choose a race and create an instance of a race class based on their choice. For example, if the player chose a Lizardman race from this code:

def character_creation():
    print("You have four choices, choose wisely")
    races = ['Lizard', 'Bookshelf', 'Genie', 'Werepus']

    while True:
        for i, j in enumerate(races):
            print(f"[{i + 1}]", j)

        choice = int(input('Pick a race:'))

        if choice <= len(races):
            print('You are a ', races[choice])
            return races[choice]
        else:
            continue

How would I get my code to make a race object?

character = Race('Lizardman', 'Regrowth', 20)

Each race is created by Race(Name, Passive, HP) and each race has its own passive and hp associated with it. As in, I don't want to ask the user for the passive and the HP, just the race name.

Answer 1

You can use classmethod here.

class Race:
    def __init__(name: str, passive: str, hp: int):
        self.name = name
        self.passive = passive
        self.hp = hp

    @classmethod
    def from_race_name(cls, name):
        race_attributes = {'Lizardman':{'passive': 'Regrowth',
                                        'hp': 20,
                           .....}
        return cls(name, 
                   race_attributes[name]['passive'],
                   race_attributes[name]['hp'])

This will create an instance of the class based on only name of the race. To use it call it with the class name:

liz = Race.from_race_name('Lizardman')

This will create an instance of lizardman which will automatically be assigned 'regrowth' passive and 20 hp.

Also, if you want to create a 'unique' lizardman you can still do it manually:

admiral_akbar = Race(name='Lizardman', passive='panic', hp=999)

Answer 2

If you want the user to only choose the race name and have everything else on default you can set the default values in the class parameters.

Here's an example:

class Race():
    def __init__(self, Name: str, Passive: str = "Regrowth", HP: int = 20): # Set default values here
        self.Name = Name
        self.Passive = Passive
        self.HP = HP

def Main():
    race_name = input("Pick a race: ")
    character = Race(race_name)
    print(character.Name, character.Passive, character.HP)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    Main()

Output if user enters 'Lizardman':

Lizardman Regrowth 20

You can still overwrite and change the the Passive and the HP as so:

character = Race(Name = race_name, Passive = "Something", HP = 100)