SMS-Bot

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  Dynamic options

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  Runs entirely through SMS

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  Intelligently parses responses

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  Natural language flow

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  Varying story paths

Inspiration

To create a mobile game with a unique interface and method of interaction

What it does

Plays through a vaguely choose your own adventure style game but communicates with the user soley through sms text messages.

How we built it

Used Python and the Twilio API running on a Flask server. The program stores the game state for each user and parses input and send messages accordingly.

Challenges we ran into

Setting up the API and the Flask server was an initial challenge, but later managing the game state and sending the proper messages proved challenging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Saving all data into JSON files to be able to continue if the server resets. Managing unique states for every user. Handling different types of messages with delays, deadlines, and branching states.

What we learned

The amount of edge cases involved even in a seemingly simple problem can grow exponentially and require lots of testing to fully work out the kinks.

What's next for SMS-Bot

Adding longer stories with more varied paths and different endings. Also more complex communication paths, such as reminder texts and periodic status updates. Some more coding would be required for these, but mainly this would involve writing much longer scripts.

Built With

• flask
• python
• twilio