microsoft / microsoft/TextWorld
game.objective still overwritten by change_grammar() when quests exist (regression of #239)
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Description
Description
Issue #239 reported that manually setting quest.desc or game.objective gets overwritten by the text generation process during build()/compile(). PR #240 added a fix that copies _objective from a previous build before change_grammar() runs.
However, the fix is incomplete. In build(), the copy happens at line 788-789 before change_grammar() is called at line 803. change_grammar() then unconditionally overwrites the objective at line 460 of game.py:
self.objective = describe_event(Event(policy), self, self.grammar)
This means the preserved objective gets clobbered whenever the game has quests with a winning policy (i.e. most games).
The test added in PR #240 (test_manually_defined_objective) only tests a game with no quests, so it doesn't catch this.
Steps to Reproduce
import textworld
from textworld import GameMaker
M = GameMaker()
r1 = M.new_room("bedroom")
M.set_player(r1)
key = M.new(type="k", name="key", desc="This is a skeleton key.")
r1.add(key)
quest = M.set_quest_from_commands(["take key"])
game = M.build()
game.objective = "Find a valuable object."
game_file = M.compile("/tmp/test_game.z8")
# Load and check - the objective has been overwritten
loaded = textworld.Game.load("/tmp/test_game.json")
assert loaded.objective == "Find a valuable object.", f"Expected custom objective, got: {loaded.objective[:80]}..."
The assertion fails because change_grammar() in the second build() (triggered by compile()) overwrites the objective with auto-generated text.
Proposed Fix
In game.py, change_grammar() should only set the objective if one hasn't already been set:
# Before (line 460):
self.objective = describe_event(Event(policy), self, self.grammar)
# After:
if self._objective is None:
self.objective = describe_event(Event(policy), self, self.grammar)
Workaround
Until this is fixed, you can work around it by calling M.build(), setting game.objective, then compiling manually with textworld.generator.compile_game(game, options) instead of M.compile().
Environment
- TextWorld 1.7.0
- Python 3.12
- macOS
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start in game.py at change_grammar() and inspect the objective preservation logic in build(); review the existing test_manually_defined_objective case. Add coverage for a quest with a winning policy and verify that a manually set objective remains unchanged after compile and load.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- game-dev
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Newbie friendliness
- 55/100