Suggestions? Travelling in a Large Setting
Jen Skripac
I'm looking for suggestions or preferences to how y'all would
handle a game that takes place, say, in a large city, where
there are several multi-room "places of interest" (i.e. "Your House",
"The Park", "The Zoo") separated, logically, by enough space
that the usual "To the east, you see..." sorts of travel indicators
don't really apply.
I guess the easiest thing would be allowing something like
"GO TO ZOO" to jump directly to the zoo sub-set of locations,
but are there better and/or less SOD-killing methods that
anyone's come up with?
Thanks for any help. :)
Jen
Mary K. Kuhner
>I guess the easiest thing would be allowing something like
>"GO TO ZOO" to jump directly to the zoo sub-set of locations,
>but are there better and/or less SOD-killing methods that
>anyone's come up with?
"Madame L'Estrange" from Comp97 implemented a notepad of
all major locations known to the character, who would then
pick one to go to. Movement within major locations was
handled in the usual NSEW fashion. I thought it worked
pretty well, except for a few implementation bugs, and
was better than trying to map all of Adelaide.
If you do this, though, *please* be sure that all of the key
locations do, in fact, end up on the pad when they should.
"TAKE TRAIN TO ZOO" is also worth considering, if you can
cue it gracefully. It sure beats implementing "D. WAIT.
ENTER Z TRAIN. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. EXIT. U." (borrring!)
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
dwm...@my-deja.com
"Jen Skripac" <skr...@mainstreams.com> wrote:
> Ugh...awful subject heading, but oh well. :)
>
> I'm looking for suggestions or preferences to how y'all would
> handle a game that takes place, say, in a large city, where
> there are several multi-room "places of interest" (i.e. "Your House",
> "The Park", "The Zoo") separated, logically, by enough space
> that the usual "To the east, you see..." sorts of travel indicators
> don't really apply.
>
> "GO TO ZOO" to jump directly to the zoo sub-set of locations,
> but are there better and/or less SOD-killing methods that
> anyone's come up with?
>
> Jen
Public transportation makes sense in a city setting. It also allows
some variance in that you could have subways, elevated trains, busses,
carriages drawn by horses in touristy parts of town, that all could be
used to get around.
Bus schedules could become important, for example.
David.
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T Raymond
>I guess the easiest thing would be allowing something like
>"GO TO ZOO" to jump directly to the zoo sub-set of locations,
>but are there better and/or less SOD-killing methods that
>anyone's come up with?
That would be the easiest yes. You could also use a script to make
time pass while travel between these major areas occurs. This could
advance the time/turn counter, which could activate other events as
well as pass messages, all of which would make it flow better. Al
dependent on if you can do this in whatever IF language you are using.
>Go to Zoo
You jump back from the curb as a cab screeches to a halt in front of
you. (It IS New York City after all!)
You watch the people on the sidewalks as the cab careens down the
street.
The cabby swears a blue streak at other cars as she cuts in and out
of the traffic. You begin to wonder if this was such a good idea,
maybe next time you'll take the subway...
The cab pulls in next to the Zoo's entrance and you pay the driver and
exit the car. Before you can thank the driver she squeals out into
traffic once more.
Before you is the gate to the Zoo. The sidewalk continues west and
east.
>Enter gate
Just one example of how to make it flow. The first sentence could be a
standard message for any cab ride. The last sentence is the
description for the zoo entrance, and the rest is scripted. Obviously
there's code that needed if you are going to implement the time or
turn change, but it shouldn't be too hard in most languages (I think).
HTH
Tom
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Tom Raymond adk @ usa.net
"The original professional ameteur."
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Magnus Olsson
>In article <01bea6e7$c753b2c0$de64c8c8@jenny2>,
> "Jen Skripac" <skr...@mainstreams.com> wrote:
>> Ugh...awful subject heading, but oh well. :)
>>
>> I'm looking for suggestions or preferences to how y'all would
>> handle a game that takes place, say, in a large city, where
>> there are several multi-room "places of interest" (i.e. "Your House",
>> "The Park", "The Zoo") separated, logically, by enough space
>> that the usual "To the east, you see..." sorts of travel indicators
>> don't really apply.
>
>some variance in that you could have subways, elevated trains, busses,
>carriages drawn by horses in touristy parts of town, that all could be
>used to get around.
Or you could use the method used in "Leasure Suit Larry": the only way
to go anywhere is to hail a cab, and then just tell the cabbie
"drive to casino" or wherever you want to go.
I think systems such as this work especially well if the PC is a
stranger in the city in question - then it would make sense to just
have a short list of interesting places to go to, with no way of going
anywhere else (since you simply can't find the way on your own).
In the PC's home city, such a system could come dangerously close to
breaking mimesis, unless the PC had a reason for not going anywhere
but a short list of places. Of course, it's often - but not always -
easy to find such a reason.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, zeb...@pobox.com)
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