I don't know, in this case, with a bit of reformatting the switch can look pretty similar: function processUserInput(command) { switch (command) {

I don't know, in this case, with a bit of reformatting the switch can look pretty similar: function processUserInput(command) { switch (command) { case "north": movePlayer("north"); break; case "east": movePlayer("east"); break; case "south": movePlayer("south"); break; case "west": movePlayer("west"); break; case "look": describeLocation(); break; case "backpack": showBackpack(); break; } } Although that's to be expected, a switch on a string value isn't that much different to a string lookup in an associative array.