I wonder if anybody can suggest a source for learning more about the use of Eric Eve’s Conversation Package for Inform 7. My sense is that this is a powerful system which can do what I need, but I’m having a lot of trouble following the documentation.
A few examples of the kinds of things that I’m having trouble with:
1. I've set up a closed convnode. I'm using closed rather than open because I need it to stay active until a particular response from the player is triggered. (In fact, the response which triggers the termination of that node is not a conversational response but a non-conversational action, but there will be conversation going on in the interim so this still seemed like a reasonable way to handle it.) I've set up a suggestion list for the convnode, and that works correctly. However, what I'd really like to do is have both those suggestions that are specific to the convnode and those that are more generally attached to the NPC to appear. Generally, this is not what one wants when using a closed convnode (where the goal is to "force" the player to respond in a certain way), but in this case I want to allow the player more freedom to talk about various things, but to keep the convnode open until he does the "right" thing. Short of duplicating all of the "general" suggestions as convnode-specific suggestions (which seems awfully cumbersome) I can't seem to find a way to do this.
2. The documentation describes how to effect NPC-initiated conversation which immediately starts in a particular convnode. However, I can't figure out how to start an NPC-initiated conversation (i.e., as soon as the player enters the location where the NPC is, a conversation is begun that sets that NPC as the current interlocutor) without also opening a specific convnode.
3. The documentation describes a mechanism for controlling the order of other-suggestions vis-a-vis each other, but I can't seem to figure out how to make the ask-suggestions and the tell-suggestions appear before the other-suggestions.
4. I can't figure out why some suggestions automatically disappear from the list once they've been "used," but others do not.
I’d certainly appreciate any insights on these specific issues, but what I’m really looking for is a general source for learning about how to use the system, and for looking up these kinds of things, which goes beyond (or is at least easier to follow) than the documentation.
Thanks.
Robert Rothman