Big rooms
Max
bright spring garden (I am priveleged to attend a small private school
located in a large formerly-private home). And I thought, if I put that
garden into an IF, I would not be able to do it justice: I would either make
it one cluttered room (in Tads3, one cluttered OutdoorRoom) with a long
description, and no real sense of geography.
Has anybody implemented a system which is not map-based (rogue-like-ish) and
yet is not monadic. Example:
--------
Garden
You are in a large garden, in front of the cool shaded verandah. Just in
front of you is a bench; a little further is a crab-apple tree.
>SIT ON BENCH
You stroll over to the bench, and sit down.
>LOOK
Garden
You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench. Behind you (to the
west) is a verandah. I front of you is a crab-apple tree; its new blooms
perfume the air.
------
I get the idea that Tads3's DistanceConnectors might get me halfway there,
but I don't know how to use them... any ideas?
--Max
Rexx Magnus
Having no TADS experience, how I'd do it in inform is probably to create a
few locations to represent the one, with routines for looking in different
directions, so that you can see the entire thing from each part.
To email me, visit the site.
Eric Eve
news:4138d...@news1.mweb.co.za...
You might be able to do what you have in mind with TADS3's
DistanceConnectors. To go that route
you'd basically define your rooms in the usual way, then add a
DistanceConnector so:
DistanceConnector [hallway, kitchen, entryway] ;
This makes the contents of each room visible to the other two.
Alternatively you could define:
DistanceConnector [hallway, kitchen] ;
DistanceConnector [hallway, entryway] ;
To make the hallway visisible from the kitchen and entryway, and the
entryway and kitchen visible from the hallway, but not the kitchen
and entryway from each other.
The alternative in TADS 3 might be to use NestedRooms to represent
various subspaces within a single room. Which way you want to go
depends on what exactly you want to do, but it sounds to me that you
might want to start by experimenting with DistanceConnectors and
separate rooms.
-- Eric
Dan Shiovitz
Max <remove_th...@mweb.co.za> wrote:
>I was sitting in Math class today, looking out of the window to the big
>bright spring garden (I am priveleged to attend a small private school
>located in a large formerly-private home). And I thought, if I put that
>garden into an IF, I would not be able to do it justice: I would either make
>it one cluttered room (in Tads3, one cluttered OutdoorRoom) with a long
>description, and no real sense of geography.
>
>Has anybody implemented a system which is not map-based (rogue-like-ish) and
>yet is not monadic. Example:
I think zarf's _Shade_ does more or less what you're thinking of,
although this isn't always obvious from the room description.
[..]
>I get the idea that Tads3's DistanceConnectors might get me halfway there,
>but I don't know how to use them... any ideas?
There's actually some discussion on the t3 list right now about a
similar issue -- I would take a look at
http://lists.v-space.org/archive/tads3/200409/msg00003.html
and its followups.
>--Max
--
Dan Shiovitz :: d...@cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW
Steve Breslin
> Has anybody implemented a system which is not map-based (rogue-like-ish) and
> yet is not monadic.
I'm with you, Max. I see the monadic nature of IF locations as a major
limitation, and a great opportunity for sophistication.
> I get the idea that Tads3's DistanceConnectors might get me halfway there[.]
Right. The Tads-3 library is best suited to what you have in mind.
What it lacks is an alternate movement (report) mechanism for
navigating distance-connected environments. This is intentional, by
the way: the transcript you provided upthread is a bit too specialized
for standard library behavior. But more importantly, the Tads-3
library makes it fairly easy to implement alternate movement
mechanisms.
Your example is great, and I'd like to implement it or help you
implement it. Email me if you'd like to collaborate. This "garden"
vignette would make a superb demonstration/example for others
interested in this topic.
Cedric Knight
> I was sitting in Math class today, looking out of the window to the
> big bright spring garden (I am priveleged to attend a small private
> school located in a large formerly-private home). And I thought, if I
> put that garden into an IF, I would not be able to do it justice: I
> would either make it one cluttered room (in Tads3, one cluttered
> OutdoorRoom) with a long description, and no real sense of geography.
The standard IF room model is good for caverns, dungeons and buildings,
but not so good for detailed open-plan locations.
> Has anybody implemented a system which is not map-based
> (rogue-like-ish) and yet is not monadic. Example:
>
> --------
>
> Garden
> You are in a large garden, in front of the cool shaded verandah. Just
> in front of you is a bench; a little further is a crab-apple tree.
>
>> SIT ON BENCH
> You stroll over to the bench, and sit down.
>
>> LOOK
> Garden
> You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench. Behind you (to
> the west) is a verandah. I front of you is a crab-apple tree; its new
> blooms perfume the air.
I implemented a much smaller garden in a similar way in Inform for the
IF Art Show 2001 ('English Suburban Garden') using a 'transparent
enterable container' for each area of the garden. Some smaller objects
were only mentioned when you were nearby, but the descriptions
unfortunately weren't quite as distinct as in your example. Performing
an action that required touching a visible object moved you to the
vicinity, or you could type 'path', 'lawn', 'shed' etc to move manually.
The players said they found it confusing, so I eventually added compass
directions as an alternative.
(It was a bit of a learning exercise where probably no-one found the
main artsy Easter Egg. IIRC I got around problems with 'PUT POT PLANT IN
PLANT POT', mentioned here recently, by insisting on the phrasing
'potted plant'. Some people might have misinterpreted 'pot plant' in
any case.)
Cedric
Eric Eve
There is, I guess, also the straightforward but potentially
laborious way of doing this, e.g. in TADS 3:
garden : OutdoorRoom 'Garden' 'the garden'
desc ()
{
if(gPlayerChar.isIn(bench))
"You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench.
Behind you (to the
west) is a verandah. In front of you is a crab-apple tree;
its new blooms
perfume the air.";
else
"You are in a large garden, in front of the cool shaded
verandah. Just in
front of you is a bench; a little further is a crab-apple
tree. ";
}
;
+ bench: Chair, Heavy 'green bench' 'green bench'
"Blah, blah..."
dobjFor(SitOn)
{
action()
{
"You stroll over to the bench and sit down. ";
inherited;
}
}
;
(Caveat: I haven't actually tested this).
It's possible that this approach could do what you're after, though
if there are a large number of objects giving different points of
view of the garden and a large number of different ways of
interacting with them it all could start to get a bit convoluted and
bug-prone; for example, you'd obviously need to give different
descriptions of the verandah and the crab-apple tree according to
circumstances, and maybe different responses to actions involving
them depending where the PC was.
The discussion Dan referred to on the TADS3 list concerns an
experimental library extension that would allow you to issue
commands like STAND NEAR TREE or GO NEAR VERANDAH or MOVE BEHIND
BENCH, but may or may not handle these commands in a way that's
particularly helpful for what you want to do. If you want to check
it out, given that it's currently under development, may be
bug-ridden, and could well undergo radical change before it's
finished with, you can get the current working version from
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~manc0049/files/SpaceNear.zip.
-- Eric
Max
> Garden
> You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench. Behind you (to the
> west) is a verandah. In front of you is a crab-apple tree; its new blooms
> perfume the air.
>
I realised (or rather, smelled) today that crab-apple flowers have no smell.
Anyone know of a tree with similar blooms (pink-edged white; no foliage
until after peak of flowering).
I like this bit of transcript, but I wouldn't want to put such a lie in a
game.
--Max
samwyse
> On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 20:20:30 GMT, Max scrawled:
>
>
>>I was sitting in Math class today, looking out of the window to the big
>>bright spring garden (I am priveleged to attend a small private school
>>located in a large formerly-private home). And I thought, if I put that
>>garden into an IF, I would not be able to do it justice: I would either
>>make it one cluttered room (in Tads3, one cluttered OutdoorRoom) with a
>>long description, and no real sense of geography.
>>
>>Has anybody implemented a system which is not map-based (rogue-like-ish)
>>and yet is not monadic. Example:
> Having no TADS experience, how I'd do it in inform is probably to create a
> few locations to represent the one, with routines for looking in different
> directions, so that you can see the entire thing from each part.
A short while back, I helped Rexx with an Inform problem involving a
garden full of topiary animals or something. I then hacked out a Class
that I'm going to use one of these days, but the important thing is that
it allows cartesian coordinates to be assigned to things.
The coordinates don't have to be numeric: In my planned Imelda Marcos
Shoe Museum, the three axes would be chirality (left or right), color
(taupe, sandstone, eggshell, etc) and style (sandal, flat, pump, or
high-heel).
In your case, though, I'd go with numeric and implement a 'wander' verb
to move around. Just because you do this, you don't have to make the
user interface rogue-like; room descriptions would only print small
objects within, say, ten feet of the player. For a poor example,
consider this:
Living Room
This is a 12-by-20 foot room. You are standing to the south, near the
entrance to the dining room. You can see a couch, an overstuffed chair,
a coffee table, and an end table.
> wander north
You are standing in the center of the room. You can see a couch, an
overstuffed chair, a coffee table (upon which you can see a few drink
coasters), and an end table.
> wander north
You are standing near the hallway to the rest of the house. You can see
a couch, an overstuffed chair, a coffee table, and an end table (upon
which you can see some magazines).
> wander north
You can't go any further without leaving the room.
Max
"samwyse" <deja...@email.com> wrote in message
news:lSo_c.15561$UA4...@newssvr24.news.prodigy.com...
>
> In your case, though, I'd go with numeric and implement a 'wander' verb
> to move around. Just because you do this, you don't have to make the
> user interface rogue-like; room descriptions would only print small
> objects within, say, ten feet of the player. For a poor example,
> consider this:
>
> Living Room
>
> This is a 12-by-20 foot room. You are standing to the south, near the
> entrance to the dining room. You can see a couch, an overstuffed chair,
> a coffee table, and an end table.
>
> > wander north
>
> You are standing in the center of the room. You can see a couch, an
> overstuffed chair, a coffee table (upon which you can see a few drink
> coasters), and an end table.
>
I like the co-ordinate idea (in fact, I was about to post such an idea
myself, when I read this). However, the "wander north" seems extremely
artificial, and why should "go" and "wander" mean different things? I was
thinking of some combination of the two.
--Max
samwyse
How about the next time you enter the garden, you get this:
Garden
You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench. In front of
you (to the east), Aunt Jemima and her cat, Austin, are perfuming
the crab-apple tree; she never liked the fact that its flowers
have no smell.
samwyse
> "samwyse" <deja...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:lSo_c.15561$UA4...@newssvr24.news.prodigy.com...
>
>>In your case, though, I'd go with numeric and implement a 'wander' verb
>>to move around. Just because you do this, you don't have to make the
>>user interface rogue-like; room descriptions would only print small
>>objects within, say, ten feet of the player. For a poor example,
>>consider this:
[...]
> I like the co-ordinate idea (in fact, I was about to post such an idea
> myself, when I read this). However, the "wander north" seems extremely
> artificial, and why should "go" and "wander" mean different things? I was
> thinking of some combination of the two.
Hey, I was making stuff up off-the-cuff there, gimme a break! Actually,
you make a good point. My thinking was that the player would use "go"
to move between locations, and "wander" to move within, with no overlap
in the commands. But maybe once you're in a large room, then you have
to say "leave north" to escape.
Unfortunately, neither "wander" nor "leave" abbreviates well. "w n"
doesn't mean "wander north", it means "west north", which is nonsense.
Ditto for "l n" meaning "look north" rather than "leave north".
I proposed a library patch earlier this year that would add an
implicit_action property to the library's Compass, defaulting to 'go'.
If I used that patch, then entering a large rooms could change the
implicit_action to 'wander' while leaving would reset it to 'go'. Then,
'n', 's', 'e', 'w' would behave appropriately to the location.
That leaves the problem of communicating how all this works to the
player without a memesis-breaking expository lump.
Changing gears a bit, 3-D modeling (as in first-person shooters) uses
something called LOD, or level of detail. The idea is that when the
player is, say, ten feet from a wall, instead of rendering a wood-grain
texture, just render a solid tan color. The same idea could be applied
when describing a large room. If the player is over X feet from an
object, don't mention it, if between X and Y feet, it's a "bush", if
between Y and Z, it's a "beautiful rosebush", and if less than Z, it's a
"beautiful rosebush whose crimson buds remind you of your lover's lips".
Cedric Knight
> > You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench. Behind you (to
> > the west) is a verandah. In front of you is a crab-apple tree; its
> > new blooms perfume the air.
> >
>
> I realised (or rather, smelled) today that crab-apple flowers have no
> smell. Anyone know of a tree with similar blooms (pink-edged white;
> no foliage until after peak of flowering).
May trees (hawthorn) can be pink-edged white, and flower early, although
not as early as blackthorn. And they certainly perfume the air, but
some people think it's the perfume of old socks. Or some species of
prunus, I expect.
> I like this bit of transcript, but I wouldn't want to put such a lie
> in a game.
:) Well a recent short simulation had rowan berries available at the
same time as cowslip flowers. IF has never required high standards of
botanical verisimilitude.
Cedric
Rexx Magnus
> May trees (hawthorn) can be pink-edged white, and flower early, although
> not as early as blackthorn. And they certainly perfume the air, but
> some people think it's the perfume of old socks. Or some species of
> prunus, I expect.
>
Tradition has them not being allowed in the house because they smell of
death. :)
>> I like this bit of transcript, but I wouldn't want to put such a lie
>> in a game.
>
>:) Well a recent short simulation had rowan berries available at the
> same time as cowslip flowers. IF has never required high standards of
> botanical verisimilitude.
>
> Cedric
That would probably have been my abortion of an intro.
Don't worry though, that was the red-headed ancestor of my current work,
which the family now has nothing to do with.
;)
Max
> On or about 9/4/2004 3:28 PM, Max did proclaim:
>
> > myself, when I read this). However, the "wander north" seems extremely
> > artificial, and why should "go" and "wander" mean different things? I
was
> > thinking of some combination of the two.
>
> Hey, I was making stuff up off-the-cuff there, gimme a break! Actually,
> you make a good point. My thinking was that the player would use "go"
> to move between locations, and "wander" to move within, with no overlap
> in the commands. But maybe once you're in a large room, then you have
> to say "leave north" to escape.
>
Didn't mean to offend. Any discussion in this group which leads to the
development of better IF is good discussion. Thus, I mentioned a small
criticism of your system, in an attempt to help you improve your game(s),
just as you have improved mine.
--Max
Max
> On or about 9/4/2004 2:35 PM, Max did proclaim:
> How about the next time you enter the garden, you get this:
>
> Garden
> You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench. In front of
> you (to the east), Aunt Jemima and her cat, Austin, are perfuming
> the crab-apple tree; she never liked the fact that its flowers
> have no smell.
>
Thank you samwyse. See... discussion in RAIF *does* lead to the betterment
of IF. :-)
--Max
Rexx Magnus
>>
>> Hey, I was making stuff up off-the-cuff there, gimme a break!
>> Actually, you make a good point. My thinking was that the player would
>> use "go" to move between locations, and "wander" to move within, with
>> no overlap in the commands. But maybe once you're in a large room,
>> then you have to say "leave north" to escape.
>>
>
> Didn't mean to offend. Any discussion in this group which leads to the
> development of better IF is good discussion. Thus, I mentioned a small
> criticism of your system, in an attempt to help you improve your
> game(s), just as you have improved mine.
>
> --Max
I don't think he was genuinely insulted, somehow. :)
It is a good idea though. I think 'go' should simply move you from one
segment of the location to another, whilst 'leave' could explicitly tell
the PC to get out of that current area totally. Of course, 'go' would
still work to leave an area if you were in the segment next to an exit.
Eric Eve
news:Xns955B97CE7CD...@130.133.1.4...
It looks to me like the best way to implement this kind of thing, at
least in TADS3, might be to divide your garden into a number of
separate room objects and join them up with a DistanceConnector. A
first shot at implementing your garden along these lines might be:
class GardenRoom : OutdoorRoom
roomBeforeAction()
{
if(gDobj != nil && !gDobj.isIn(self)
&& !(gActionIs(Examine) || gActionIs(TravelVia) ||
gActionIs(WalkOverTo))
)
tryImplicitAction(WalkOverTo, gDobj);
}
;
DefineTAction(WalkOverTo)
;
VerbRule(WalkOverTo)
('walk' | 'stroll' | 'amble' | 'go') ('over' | 'across') 'to'
singleDobj
: WalkOverToAction
verbPhrase = 'stroll/strolling (over to what)'
;
modify Thing
dobjFor(WalkOverTo)
{
preCond = [objVisible, actorStanding]
verify()
{
if(gActor.isIn(getOutermostRoom))
illogicalAlready('{You/he} {is} already there. ');
}
action()
{
gActor.moveIntoForTravel(getOutermostRoom);
defaultReport('{You/he} stroll{s} over to {the dobj/him}. ');
}
}
;
verandah : Room 'Verandah'
"A garden stretches to the east of this verandah. "
east = garden1
;
garden1 : GardenRoom 'Garden'
"You are in a large garden, in front of the cool shaded verandah.
Just in
front of you is a bench; a little further is a crab-apple tree. "
east = garden2
west = verandah
;
garden2 : GardenRoom 'Garden'
"You are in a large garden. Behind you (to the
west) is a verandah. In front of you is a crab-apple tree; its
new blooms
perfume the air. "
west = garden1
east = garden3
;
+ Chair, Heavy 'lime green wooden bench' 'bench'
"It's a wooden bench, painted lime green. "
sightSize = large
dobjFor(SitOn) { preCond = [objVisible] }
;
garden3 : GardenRoom 'Garden'
"You are in a garden, standing just by a crab-apple tree, with
a bench just a little further off to the west. "
west = garden2
;
+ Fixture 'crab-apple crab apple tree' 'crab-apple tree'
"It has pink-white edged blooms. "
sightSize = large
;
++ SimpleOdor
desc = "The new blooms of the crab-apple tree perfume the air --
or
at least they would if they smelled of anything. "
;
DistanceConnector[garden1, garden2, garden3]
;
-- Eric
Max
"Eric Eve" <eric...@NOSPAMhmc.ox.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:chfeim$mfh$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
And I was starting to think I'd have to work it out for myself ;-)
Thanks Eric.
--Max
Eric Eve
>
> "Eric Eve" <eric...@NOSPAMhmc.ox.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:chfeim$mfh$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
>
> > It looks to me like the best way to implement this kind of
thing, at
> > least in TADS3, might be to divide your garden into a number of
> > separate room objects and join them up with a DistanceConnector.
A
> > first shot at implementing your garden along these lines might
be:
> >
> > class GardenRoom : OutdoorRoom
> > roomBeforeAction()
> > {
> > if(gDobj != nil && !gDobj.isIn(self)
> > && !(gActionIs(Examine) || gActionIs(TravelVia) ||
> > gActionIs(WalkOverTo))
> > )
> >
> > tryImplicitAction(WalkOverTo, gDobj);
> > }
> > ;
[snip]
> And I was starting to think I'd have to work it out for myself ;-)
>
> Thanks Eric.
You're welcome! :-)
I've played with this a bit more, and a possibly neater way of
achieving the implicit WalkOver action (than that rather messy
roomBeforeAction) is to define your own precondition:
nearObj: PreCondition
checkPreCondition(obj, allowImplicit)
{
/* check to see if the actor is in the object's location -
if so, we're done */
if (gActor.isIn(obj.getOutermostRoom))
return nil;
/* the actor isn't there - try a "walk over to" command */
if (allowImplicit && tryImplicitAction(WalkOverTo, obj))
{
/*
* make sure that leaves the actor in the right
location - if not,
* exit silently, since the reason for failure will
have
* been reported by the "walk over to" action
*/
if (!gActor.isIn(obj.getOutermostRoom))
exit;
/* indicate that we executed an implicit command */
return true;
}
/* we can't walk over implicitly - report the problem and
exit */
reportFailure('{You/he} {is} not close enough to ' +
obj.theName + '. ');
exit;
}
;
Then instead of the roomBeforeAction you can add this precondition
to the object/action combinations for which you want the implicit
WalkOverToAction to occur, e.g.:
+ gardenBench : Chair, Heavy 'lime green wooden bench' 'bench'
"It's a wooden bench, painted lime green. "
sightSize = large
dobjFor(SitOn) { preCond { return [nearObj] + inherited; } }
// make sure nearObj comes first here
;
garden3 : GardenRoom 'Garden'
"You are in a garden, standing just by a crab-apple tree, with
a bench just a little further off to the west. "
west = garden2
;
+ Fixture 'crab-apple crab apple tree' 'crab-apple tree'
"It has pink-white edged blooms. "
sightSize = large
dobjFor(Smell) { preCond = static inherited + nearObj }
remoteDesc(pov)
{
if(pov.isIn(gardenBench))
"It's behind where you're sitting. "
else if (pov.isIn(garden2))
"It's a medium size crab-apple tree, over to the east behind
the bench. "
else if(pov.isIn(garden1))
"It's some way off, over to the east behind the bench. "
}
;
Note also that if you want objects described differently depending
where you are, you can use remoteDesc(pov), as in the crab-apple
tree example above.
By this means you can vary the response you get to EXAMINE TREE
depending on where it's examined from.
HTH
-- Eric
Michael
Wouldn't Aunt Jemima be slathering the tree up in maple syrup instead
of perfuming it?
Michael
samwyse
> samwyse <deja...@email.com> wrote in message news:<sVp_c.15619$g75....@newssvr24.news.prodigy.com>...
>>You are in a large garden, sitting on a green bench. In front of
>>you (to the east), Aunt Jemima and her cat, Austin, are perfuming
>>the crab-apple tree; she never liked the fact that its flowers
>>have no smell.
>
> Wouldn't Aunt Jemima be slathering the tree up in maple syrup instead
> of perfuming it?
Wrong Aunt Jemima. See http://www.joltcountry.com/trottingkrips/curses.html
Michael
Ah. One of the (many) games I've never finished due to
difficult/unfair puzzles. I obviously never got to Aunt Jemima...
Michael
Richard Bos
> samwyse <deja...@email.com> wrote in message news:<yUt%c.9102$yp2....@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com>...
> > Wrong Aunt Jemima. See http://www.joltcountry.com/trottingkrips/curses.html
>
> Ah. One of the (many) games I've never finished due to
> difficult/unfair puzzles. I obviously never got to Aunt Jemima...
Difficult and unfair is defendable - I've yet to finish it, as well -
but if you've never got to Aunt Jemima, you never even tried. She's
freely accessible from the start and what, three rooms from the first?
Richard
Michael
Really? Huh. It's been quite awhile since I gave that game a go. I do
remember...
M
I
N
O
R
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
...fiddling around with a radio, pushing it from room to room. That's
the game with the map of Paris, right? Anyway, my memory is like a
@&$#ing sieve, so forgive me if all of this sounds incredibly dumb.
Michael
Richard Bos
> r...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard Bos) wrote in message news:<414004de...@news.individual.net>...
> > bilgepu...@yahoo.com (Michael) wrote:
> >
> > > samwyse <deja...@email.com> wrote in message news:<yUt%c.9102$yp2....@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com>...
> > > > Wrong Aunt Jemima. See http://www.joltcountry.com/trottingkrips/curses.html
> > >
> > > Ah. One of the (many) games I've never finished due to
> > > difficult/unfair puzzles. I obviously never got to Aunt Jemima...
> >
> > Difficult and unfair is defendable - I've yet to finish it, as well -
> > but if you've never got to Aunt Jemima, you never even tried. She's
> > freely accessible from the start and what, three rooms from the first?
>
> Really? Huh. It's been quite awhile since I gave that game a go. I do
> remember...
>
> M
> I
> N
> O
> R
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
> S
>
> ...fiddling around with a radio, pushing it from room to room.
Aunt Jemima is, IIRC, one room away from the radio.
Richard