My story occurs 99% on a ship. I’m trying to decide if I should use nautical directions (port, starboard, etc.) or stick with regular compass directions (west, east, etc.).
I’ve switched to nautical directions (easy enough in Inform using an extension called Shipboard Directions and a few modifications to my code) and although it works well and makes sense for the story, I find myself wanting to type E W N S regularly. I would switch back, but using compass directions really doesn’t make sense for the setting.
True. Do you anticipate people abbreviating the nautical directions like that? (I’d personally be comfortable with “long names are nautical, abbreviations are compass” but I’ve only played one game on a ship.)