Hello,
Looking for a way to hide a box in a room ( basement ) and not make it viewable ( able to be examined or moved ) until a character in another room tells the player about it…
so for instance, if my player is in a Kitchen and shows another character ( Tim ) a photo… Tim would then say " oh that looks like the box of tools in the basement "… next time I go to the basement, and “look down” im looking for the box to be there and movable… if I never show Tim the photo and he never tells me about the box, I want it hidden…
Yes, that works. You don’t actually need to say explicitly that it’s off-stage (though for clarity I usually do this), since Inform won’t put it into a room unless you tell it to.
sorry, one last question on this topic… now that I can move the box to the Basement after the conversation, is there a way to add additional text when I go to that location now…
right now it says
Basement
You can see a box here
would be cool if I could say
Basement
You now notice the box that TJ mentioned earlier
Absolutely; see 3.11 in the manual. You just define the box like this:
The box of tools is a thing. "You now notice the box that TJ mentioned earlier."
This will remain the way the box is described in rooms until the player picks up the box. (So you won’t see that message any more if the player picks up then drops the box, which is exactly as it should be.)