movement restrictions
Przemyslaw Wstrzemiezliwy
that are on the desk. Should the PC be able to LOOK AT objects outside of
his reaching range? What about EXAMINE? Does EXAMINE require movement? If
there is a TV-set outside of the PC:s reaching range, should he be able to
examine it? Which verbs require movement and which verbs do not?
Sean T Barrett
>Przemyslaw Wstrzemiezliwy <p_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>reason, but because this is the convention in most other games. If I can't
>EXAMINE something at the other end of the room, I'd consider this a bug,
>unless you've warned me beforehand.
Indeed, I expect to be able to examine things I see off in the
distance even though I can't get to them.
If I were implementing this scenario, then I would let everything
be examinable, but if there's something you want to reveal that
shouldn't be seen at a distance, let the examine vary depending
on the situation. You might have to imply this so the player knows
to try again, which could get kind of stupid:
>EXAMINE PAPERWEIGHT
It looks kinda cool, but you can't tell how heavy it is cuffed to
the desk like that.
>REMOVE CUFFS
Ok.
>EXAMINE PAPERWEIGHT
It looks kinda cool, but it doesn't really seem heavy enough
to hold anything down.
But that's just my personal tastes.
SeanB
Carl Muckenhoupt
<ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
>Of course, if you're using one of the main IF languages, a lot of this may
>be done for you. But certainly not all of it.
Indeed, if you're using an IF language, you're likely to find that
there's already some kind of built-in touchability check for some
verbs. Inform uses a global function called ObjectIsUntouchable TADS
seems to use a similar routine called checkReach. It seems like an
obvious entry point. Modify the touchability function to check for
your special conditions involving the player being chained up, and it
automatically applies to all the verbs that you couldn't perfrom on an
item in a closed glass box.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, the simplest approach may be
to treat "chained to the desk" as a container that separates you from
the rest of the room. That's something that the touchability routines
handle already. In Inform, you'd do something like this:
Object -> incuffs "handcuffs"
with inside_description "You are handcuffed to the desk.",
before [;
Go: print "You can't go anywhere while you're chained up";
return 2; // see DM Chapter 14
],
has container enterable transparent plural
;
Put the player inside that and put it in the room, and you have the
desired effect of making everything in the room observable but not
touchable. You can examine but not take items in the room,
characters can be spoken to but not attacked, etc. To make an item
reachable, put it inside the incuffs object with the player. Anything
the player drops remains reachable.
You'd still have to do a good deal of work on the messages, though.
With the above code and nothing else, you get nonsense like "In the
handcuffs you can see a desk." And you'd have to be sure to move
everything from the cuffs to the room when the player escapes.
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Paul E. Bell
closely".
This could provide a cursory examination, and a more thorough
examination requiring hands-on experience, something between "examine"
and "search" (though "search" is used to discover objects hidden behind,
under, inside, the searched object; perhaps examine closely could reveal
more detail).
Hmm, I just thought of another one, "peruse" could give a terse
description of titles or topics (in "peruse books" on a bookshelf, or
"peruse notebook" in a notebook), whereas "read" and "read about" are
already well-known.
Oh, I'm refering to Inform, I don't know what language you are working
in.
--
Paul E. Bell | Email and AIM: wd0...@millcomm.com | ifMUD: Helios
IRC: PKodon, DrWho4, and Helios | webpage: members.nbci.com/wd0gcp/
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Przemyslaw Wstrzemiezliwy
What if the player decides to throw things at distant objects? A pen that
lying on the desk is thrown at a window. Wouldn't the transparent container
prohibit that?
Matthew T. Russotto
That's pretty much up to you, the game author. But "EXAMINE" and
"LOOK AT" are generally assumed to be synonyms by the player.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Matthew T. Russotto
Paul E. Bell <wd0...@millcomm.com> wrote:
}
}Hmm, I just thought of another one, "peruse" could give a terse
}description of titles or topics (in "peruse books" on a bookshelf, or
}"peruse notebook" in a notebook), whereas "read" and "read about" are
}already well-known.
peruse 1a : to examine or consider with attention and in detail
2: Read; especially: to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner
(yep, it means the _opposite_ of what most people think it means,
though Merriam-Webster now also accepts the usual meaning
1b : to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner)
Carl Muckenhoupt
<p_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>What if the player decides to throw things at distant objects? A pen that
>lying on the desk is thrown at a window. Wouldn't the transparent container
>prohibit that?
In Inform, throwing does not require the target to be touchable. I've
just confirmed this using the code sample from my last post. I don't
know how it works in TADS.
Field Marshall Stack
>
>What if the player decides to throw things at distant objects? A pen that
>lying on the desk is thrown at a window. Wouldn't the transparent container
>prohibit that?
>
>> You'd still have to do a good deal of work on the messages, though.
>> With the above code and nothing else, you get nonsense like "In the
>> handcuffs you can see a desk." And you'd have to be sure to move
>> everything from the cuffs to the room when the player escapes.
>
Right, right, say the key to the puzzle is getting a grue to arrive, so
the player decides to throw their shoe at a light bulb, which provides
the room's light... to complicated matters, not only is the player
chained to the desk, they're also inside a steel cage (but it's okay,
because the bars are wide enough for the shoe to pass)...
--
Field Marshall Stack
Dan Schmidt
| Hmm, I just thought of another one, "peruse" could give a terse
| description of titles or topics (in "peruse books" on a bookshelf,
| or "peruse notebook" in a notebook), whereas "read" and "read about"
| are already well-known.
Actually, 'peruse' means 'to read very carefully', not 'to skim',
although it is commonly misused.
Sean T Barrett
>Vincent Lynch wrote:
>>Of course, if you're using one of the main IF languages, a lot of this may
>>be done for you. But certainly not all of it.
>
>Indeed, if you're using an IF language, you're likely to find that
>there's already some kind of built-in touchability check for some
>verbs. Inform uses a global function called ObjectIsUntouchable TADS
>seems to use a similar routine called checkReach. It seems like
Unfortunately Inform verbs do not consistently call this function;
in particular, the "stub verbs" do not. In fact I have a modified library
which lets you use an attribute to specify scenery that is "distant"
which IS checked even by the stubbed verbs; I intend to release the
mod after I release the game involved.
>transparent container
In the same soon-to-be-released Inform game the player gets
"stuck to a desk" by something which really *is* a transparent container
(you couldn't throw a shoe at something outside it), but I was too paranoid
about all the secret voodoo things that might go wrong from actually putting
a transparent container in, and the fact that the stub verbs printed bogus
messages, so I ended up putting a "stuck to desk" object "next" to the
player, and loading it down with "react_before" for every touch-based
verb; stripping out the details:
! Man, the following is a hack. I hope it works.
react_before
[;
Drop: "No.";
Take, Remove, Search, Touch, Pull, Push, Blow, Rub, Probe,
Squeeze, Open, Close, PushDir, Transfer, Turn, Climb, Swing,
Blow, Cut, JumpOver, Dig:
if (~~allowed(noun)) "No.";
Insert,PutOn,ThrowAt, Lock, Unlock:
if (~~allowed(second)) "No.";
if (~~allowed(noun)) "No.";
Give:
if (~~allowed(second)) "No.";
if (~~allowed(noun)) "No.";
Kiss,Attack:
if (~~allowed(noun)) "No.";
Go,Exit,Enter:
"No.";
]
Hmm, it looks like I missed "burn". Maybe one of those "blow"s
was a braino for "burn".
SeanB
GoddoG
I've got something very similar in the project I'm working on,
and I finally decided that the player should be allowed to examine
everything in viewing range for a very non-logical reason. It gives
them more to do while they're trapped, hopefully helping to keep them
from getting to frustrated while working things out. I used SEARCH
(which I won't let them do unless they can reach it) to deal with the
few things I didn't want them to be able to find by EXAMINE. It was a
little klunky in the coding, but it worked out well in the final
evaluation of the room, I think.
Steven Howard
>In article <3A55907A...@millcomm.com>,
>Paul E. Bell <wd0...@millcomm.com> wrote:
>}
>}Hmm, I just thought of another one, "peruse" could give a terse
>}description of titles or topics (in "peruse books" on a bookshelf, or
>}"peruse notebook" in a notebook), whereas "read" and "read about" are
>}already well-known.
>peruse 1a : to examine or consider with attention and in detail 2:
>Read; especially: to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner
>(yep, it means the _opposite_ of what most people think it means,
>though Merriam-Webster now also accepts the usual meaning 1b : to
>look over or through in a casual or cursory manner) --
I live a more sheltered life than I thought. I don't recall ever encountering this "usual" meaning of "peruse" before Paul's post quoted above. I was about to fire off another cranky "[OT] Vocabulary" post -- although the last time I did that it bit me in the ass.
========
Steven Howard
mrb...@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~mrblore
JSwing
>>peruse 1a : to examine or consider with attention and in detail 2:
>>Read; especially: to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner
>>(yep, it means the _opposite_ of what most people think it means,
>>though Merriam-Webster now also accepts the usual meaning 1b : to
>>look over or through in a casual or cursory manner) --
>
I don't think that it's exactly the opposite- typically you peruse a
collection of something. If I peruse a set of books on the shelf, it means
that I'm paying attention to the titles. More detailed than 'look at'. 1a
and 1b are not that far apart in my understanding.
If I peruse a book, then I'm reading selected pages or paragraphs, just not
the whole thing (so I'm actually perusing the pages).
That said, peruse is not that common of a word, so it might not make a good
verb.