Hangman Game using C issues - c

Question

Newbie to C language and I'm trying to make a hangman game. I have the following code:
int main(void) {
char userResponse;//This is the response from the user on rather they want to continue or not.
do {
startGame();
printf("Do you want to continue (y or n): ");
scanf("%c", &userResponse);
} while(userResponse == 'y');
return 0;
}
int startGame(void) {
int num_letters = 0; //length of word array
int count = 0;
int tries = 0; //total tries player has used
int correctGuesses = 0; //number of correct guesses
int correctLetter = 0; //flag to check if the letter guessed was correct.
int repeatLetter = 0; //flag to check if the letter guessed was already guessed before.
int randomWord = 1+(rand()%6); //setting a variable that will pick a word from the word array at random.
char word[] = {"spot", "physicist", "penny", "klingon", "bazinga", "continuum"}; // should these be all lower char or does it matter?
char guess;
char incorrectGuesses[5] = " "; // all the incorrect letters chosen by the player will be stored in this array.
char gameWord[num_letters]; //starts to fill out the word as the player guesses correctly
srand(time(NULL)); // Don't really understand this line but the interweb said I needed it. Can you tell me why?
num_letters = strlen(word);
gameWord[num_letters] = '\0';
//This will show the player what letter they have typed incorrectly.
for(count = 0; count < num_letters; count++)
gameWord[count] = '-'; // This will display the length of the word represented with a "-".
printf("Welcome to Big Bang Hangman!\n\n");
printf("Time to guess the word!");
draw_hangman(tries);
while(tries < NUM_TRIES_ALLOWED) { //Player only gets 7 guesses. Found this on the interweb.
printf("Here is your word: %s\n", gameWord);
printf("Incorrect Letters: %s\n", incorrectGuesses);
printf("\nGuess a letter (and press 'Enter'): ");
fgets(&guess, sizeof(guess), stdin);
//This compares the current guess with the previous guesses so that you won't affect a turn if you pick the same incorrect letter.
for(count = 0; count < num_letters; count++)
if(guess == gameWord[count] || guess == incorrectGuesses[count]) { // If the player guess is equal to the size of the word or if its equal to the
repeatLetter = 1;
correctLetter = 1;
break;
}
if(repeatLetter == 0) // setting the flag back to 0 tells the compiler the game is over.
//Checks for matches in string
for(count = 0; count < num_letters; count++) {
if(guess == word[count]) { // can't understand why I'm getting this warrning.
gameWord[count] = guess;
correctGuesses++;
//if (correctGuesses == count) {
//printf("\n\nCONGRATULATIONS! You guessed the word %s!", gameWord);
//exit(0);
//}
if(correctGuesses == num_letters) {
printf("\n\nCONGRATULATIONS! You guessed the word %s!", gameWord);
exit(0);
}
correctLetter = 1;
}
}
if(correctLetter == 0) {
incorrectGuesses[tries] = guess;
tries++;
}
// reset both flags
repeatLetter = 0;
correctLetter = 0;
//startGame(); // Start the game over when the flag is reset.
}
printf("Sorry but you did not guess the word.\n");
printf("The word is: %s\n\n", gameWord);
return 0;
}
It is outputting the following:
Welcome to Big Bang Hangman!
Time to guess the word!
___
|
|
|
|
|
---
Here is your word: ----
Incorrect Letters:
Guess a letter (and press 'Enter'): Here is your word: ----
Incorrect Letters:
The last two lines continue on forever until I stop it. I'm completely lost.
Any advice would be great.

Answer 1

You have multiple (and I really mean that) problems in your code. But lets just pick one
char guess;
fgets(&guess, sizeof(guess), stdin);
is not the correct way to get the user to enter a letter. Maybe
scanf("%c", &guess);
would work better for you.
But really your approach is all wrong. Start again, write a few lines of code, get them working and then write a few more. You've written loads of code, lots of which is wrong. That's not a productive way to program.