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 Post subject: Re: Comprehensive lists
PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 3:16 pm 
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Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2010 6:30 am
Posts: 986
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Good news 1:
matt w wrote:
Code:
Report entering the bed:    say "You slide under the covers and wrap your legs in them. Careful not to wake up Terry.";   rule succeeds.
What "rule succeeds" means is that, when this rule runs, the "report entering" rulebook stops. (See section 18.10 of the rulebook.) So the standard reporting rule doesn't run. This rule runs before the standard report entering rule because it's more specific; it's about entering the bed rather than entering just anything.

Make that
Code:
After entering the bed: say "You slide under the covers and wrap your legs in them. Careful not to wake up Terry."

After rules run before any report rules, and they automatically stop the action.

Good news 2:
matt w wrote:
The tricky thing is that you can't write "Report exiting the bed" because "exiting" isn't an action that applies to a thing; it just means exiting whatever the player is in. But you can't write "Report exiting when the player is in the bed" because, by the time the report rule runs, the player isn't in the bed anymore. What I did was to look up "exiting" in the Index (under the "Actions" tab) and see, when I clicked on the magnifying glass, that it had a "named value" called the "container exited from." That's what I needed to use here -- whenever you exit, "container exited from" stores, well, the container you exited from, which is exactly what we need here.

Using the Index is good advice! As it happens, Inform (nowadays) lets authors write thing like
Code:
After exiting from the bed
in their rules – though it won't let players write commands like "EXIT FROM BED"!

Good news 3:
matt w wrote:
I don't think there's a way to make all appliancey things scenery

Yes, there actually is:
Code:
An appliancey thing is usually scenery.

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 Post subject: Re: Comprehensive lists
PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 6:23 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:34 pm
Posts: 2128
Location: Burlington, VT
Thanks for the good news, Felix! And for correcting my misapprehensions. I see from section 26.2 that "exiting from" was introduced in 6E59, which is actually after I started learning the system, so I don't feel so bad. And now that you pointed out I found this line in the standard rules:

Code:
The exiting action has an object called the container exited from (matched as "from").


I was afraid that "an appliance thing is usually scenery" would lead to loops, but actually if you create loops:

Code:
A thing can be non-Jourdain-front or Jourdain-front. A thing can be Jourdain-back or non-Jourdain-back. A Jourdain-front thing is usually non-Jourdain-back. A Jourdain-back thing is usually Jourdain-front. A non-Jourdain-front thing is usually Jourdain-back. A non-Jourdain-back thing is usually non-Jourdain-front.


It seems to handle them sensibly if not predictably.

(Anton, I don't know if I'd advise doing the "left means back in the bed when you've just got out of it" thing. Unless you have a lot of sophisticated stuff going on with moving around rooms with relative directions, it seems like it might be pretty annoying to deal with.)


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 Post subject: Re: Comprehensive lists
PostPosted: Mon Sep 05, 2011 2:46 pm 
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Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2011 3:51 am
Posts: 7
Finally got around to visit and reply again.
Thanks, Felix for the update. As I said. It isn't all that easy but it makes for vewwy pwwetty cowwde. :)
@ matt w.
Don't worry. I won't make a habit of it. But the body text explains a lot. I am not making a game, as such, with puzzles, and everything, but more or less an interactive novel. (based on a real novel I started a while ago. but writing a complete novel is such hard work.)
So there isn't any real challenge (although in every chapter here is some stuff you have to do to get to the next chapter) but the idea is to give a greater sense of immersion by letting the player explore parts of the world themselves and, in that way, giving the characters more depth.
So that 'left to your bed' business was something leftover from the novel. But I had to remove it anyway because I made an exit to the left. :)
I'm going to insert Felix' lines of code into my program. (and then shout everywhere that I am a genius :)
And If I have something to show or playtest you'll be the first to know.


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