--m--er
Guess the word:

# word guess game by LaMouche
# import module for random functions
import random
 
def word_update(word, letters_guessed):
    masked_word = ""
    for letter in word:
        if letter in letters_guessed:
            masked_word += letter
        else: masked_word += "-"
    print "The word:", masked_word
 
# List of words for the computer to pick from
words = ("basketball", "football", "hockey", "lacrosse", "baseball")
 
# Word to be guessed; picked at random
word = random.choice(words)
 
print "="*32
print "      Guess the sport!"
print "You get to guess five letters."
print "There are %s letters in the word." % (len(word))
print "="*32
guesses = 5
letters_guessed = []
while guesses != 0:
    # make the letter lower case with .lower()
    letter = raw_input("Enter a letter: ").lower()
    if letter in letters_guessed:
        print "You already guessed that letter."
    else:
        guesses = guesses - 1
        print "You have %d guesses left." % (guesses)
        letters_guessed.append(letter)
    word_update(word, letters_guessed)
 
 
# again, make input lower case
guess = raw_input("Guess the word: ").lower()
if guess ==  word:
    print "Congratulations, %s is the word!" % (guess)
else:
    print "Nope. The word is %s." % (word)

# Word Guess Game by LaMouche
# 
# This game takes a random word from a list,
# gives you five prompts to guess letters in the word,
# and then it shows you a "masked word," filling
# in the letters you've guessed.
#
# Say the word is "hockey" and the user guesses:
# 'h,' 'e,' 't,' 'r,' and 's.' The masked word
# shown would be h---e- . Then the user gets one
# try to guess that word.
#
# More words can be added to the game by adding an
# element into the "words" variable.
#
# import module for random functions
import random
 
def word_update(word, letters_guessed): # update the masked word
    masked_word = ""
    for letter in word:
        if letter in letters_guessed:
            masked_word += letter
        else: masked_word += "-"
    print "The word:", masked_word
 
# List of words for the computer to pick from
words = ("basketball", "football", "hockey", "lacrosse", "baseball")
 
# Word to be guessed; picked at random from "words"
word = random.choice(words)
 
guesses = 5 # You can change this; it's how many letter guesses the user gets
letters_guessed = []
 
print "="*32
print "      Guess the sport!"
print "You get to guess %d letters." % (guesses)
print "There are %s letters in the word." % (len(word))
print "="*32
 
while guesses != 0:
    letter = raw_input("Enter a letter: ").lower()
    # Doesn't use up a guess if the user has already guessed that letter
    if letter in letters_guessed: 
        print "You already guessed that letter."
    else:
        guesses = guesses - 1
        print "You have %d guesses left." % (guesses)
        letters_guessed.append(letter)
    word_update(word, letters_guessed)
word_guesses = 1 # number of guesses to guess the word
word_guess = 0 # current guess number
if word_guesses == 1:
    print "You get 1 guess to guess the word."
else:
    print "You get %d guesses to guess the word." % (word_guesses)
while word_guess != word_guesses:
    guess = raw_input("Guess the word: ").lower()
    if guess ==  word:
        print "Congratulations, %s is the word!" % (guess)
        break
    else:
        print "Nope."
    word_guess += 1
    if  word_guess == word_guesses:
        print "You ran out of tries!\nThe word was %s." % (word)
 
print "\nThanks for playing LaMouche's Word Guess Game."