bubblecode can prompt users for input with the ask command, making it easy to build interactive programs.

The ask command

ask displays a prompt and waits for the user to type a response. The response is stored in the variable you specify.

ask "What is your name?" into userName
say "Hello," && userName & "!"

When running in the browser, the prompt appears as an inline input field. Type your answer and press Enter.

Combining ask with logic

User input can drive program flow just like any other variable.

say "Welcome to the bubblecode Greeter!"
say ""
 
ask "What is your name?" into userName
ask "How old are you?" into userAge
 
say ""
say "Hello," && userName & "!"
say "You are" && userAge && "years old."
 
if userAge is greater than 100 then
say "Wow, you're over 100! That's amazing!"
else if userAge is greater than 50 then
say "You have great wisdom!"
else if userAge is greater than 20 then
say "You're in the prime of life!"
else
say "You're still young — the world is yours!"
end if

Building a game

The ask command is the foundation for interactive games. Here’s a number guessing game:

put random(10) into secret
put 0 into guesses
 
say "I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10."
say ""
 
repeat 5 times
ask "Your guess?" into guess
add 1 to guesses
 
if guess is equal to secret then
  say "Correct! You got it in" && guesses && "tries!"
  exit repeat
else if guess is less than secret then
  say "Too low!"
else
  say "Too high!"
end if
end repeat
 
if guess is not equal to secret then
say "Out of tries! The number was" && secret & "."
end if

How it works in the browser

Under the hood, the bubblecode WASM runtime uses a replay model for interactive input:

1. Your script starts running until it hits an ask command
2. The runtime pauses and shows the prompt
3. You type your answer and press Enter
4. The runtime replays the entire script from the beginning, feeding all collected answers in order
5. This repeats until the program finishes

This means every ask re-runs the script — but it happens so fast you won’t notice.