Learn python the hard way - exercise 36 function problems

Question

I'm learning to code through learn python the hard way, and I've recently gotten stuck for the first time. For this exercise we're supposed to write our own game. I did so, but for some reason whenever I run it the right_room() function exits after I put in an answer, instead of proceeding to the next room. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here's my code:

from sys import exit

def bear_room():
    print "You are in a room with a bear."
    print "You have two choices. left or right?"
    next = raw_input("> ")

    if next == "left":
        left_room()
    elif next == "right":
        right_room()
    else:
        print "No idea what that means..."

def left_room():
    print "You went left."
    print "There are two doors. right or straight"
    next = raw_input("> ")

    if next == "right":
        bear_room()
    elif next == "straight":
        second_left()
    else:
        print "What are you saying, bro?"

def second_left():
    print "You went straight."
    print "You again have two choices. straight or right?"
    next = raw_input("> ")

    if next == "straight":
        print "You won! Congrats."
        exit(0)
    elif next == "right":
        dead("You opened the door and walked off a cliff. Goodbye!")
    else:
        print "I didn't quite catch that."

def right_room():
    print "You went right."
    print "There are two doors. straight or right?"
    next == raw_input("> ")

    if next == "right":
        dead("Oops, a tiger just ate you")
    elif next == "straight":
        second_right()
    else:
        "What?!?!?!"

def second_right():
    print "You went straight"
    print "Nice choice."
    print "You have two choices: left or straight"
    next == raw_input("> ")

    if next == "left":
        dead("You just fell 1 million feet to your death.")
    elif next == "straight":
        print "You made it out alive!"
        exit(0)
    else:
        "WTF?"

def dead(reason):
    print reason, "good job!"
    exit(0)

def start():
    print "You are about to enter a room."
    bear_room()

start()

Answer 1

It looks like you're trying to assign to the next variable, but you used the equality check operator (==).