working with men and women - error

Authoring Inform 7
1

Hi everyone! I’m trying to insert in my IF a man (“vecchio”). he is sleeping, but if you awake him and if you talk to him, he’ll give you an object (“pietra focaia”).
i wrote this

A thing can be akawe or sleeping. A thing is usually akawe.

instead of talking to vecchio:
	if vecchio is sleeping:
		say "Sta dormendo, non ti sente.";
	otherwise:
		say "<<Ciao ragazzo. Hanno preso anche te, eh? Che siano maledetti... Prendi questa pietra focaia, può sempre tornarti utile. E poi sicuramente serve più a te che a me.>>[paragraph break]Il Vecchio ti da una pietra focaia.[paragraph break]Prendi la pietra focaia e la metti in tasca.";
		now pietra focaia is showed;
		now the player carry pietra focaia.

but it gives me this error:

what’s the problem?
thank you very much!
bye!

2

Hmmm… Maybe it doesn’t like “-ing” as a state.

This seems to work:

Office is a Room.

A person can be asleep or awake.
Talking to is an action applying to one visible thing.
Understand "talk to [someone]" as talking to.
Report talking to: say "You have nothing to say.".

Vecchio is a man in Office. Vecchio is asleep.

instead of talking to Vecchio:
	if vecchio is asleep:
		say "Sta dormendo, non ti sente.";
	otherwise:
		say "<<Ciao ragazzo. Hanno preso anche te, eh? Che siano maledetti... Prendi questa pietra focaia, può sempre tornarti utile. E poi sicuramente serve più a te che a me.>>[paragraph break]Il Vecchio ti da una pietra focaia.[paragraph break]Prendi la pietra focaia e la metti in tasca.".
		
Instead of Waking Vecchio:
	say "You shout in his ear. He wakes. Angry.";
	Now Vecchio is awake.

I get this output in my little test:

Office
You can see Vecchio here.

>talk to vecchio
Sta dormendo, non ti sente.

>wake vecchio
You shout in his ear. He wakes. Angry.

>talk to vecchio
<<Ciao ragazzo. Hanno preso anche te, eh? Che siano maledetti... Prendi questa pietra focaia, può sempre tornarti utile. E poi sicuramente serve più a te che a me.>>

Il Vecchio ti da una pietra focaia.

Prendi la pietra focaia e la metti in tasca.

>
3

Basically this. Inform doesn’t like -ing for anything except verbs; it’s better to use “awake” and “asleep” for things like this.

4

You can define -ing adjectives if you want to, as long as they are not already defined as verbs. The specific problem here is that Inform has a built-in sleeping action (although it doesn’t do anything by default). So “sleeping” already means something, as the error report says.

5

Yes, that was the problem! now it works but… why doesn’t he like -ing adjective?
thank you very much!
bye

6

I think it’s just that -ing words have a higher chance of being already defined as actions/verbs.

7

Because SLEEP is a verb implemented in Inform 7 by default - that’s what the error message said:

Likely the code is:

sleeping is an action applying to nothing. understand "sleep" as sleeping. check sleeping: say "You don't feel especially drowsy now." instead.
In English, usually adding -ing to a word forms a gerund, which is a verb used as a noun (or at least the subject of a sentence.)
The recommended adjective “asleep” means that a person is sleeping, but is not already in use by Inform.

8

Ahhhhh ok I understood! Thank you :slight_smile: