| Chapter 7: Basic Actions |

| 7.7. The other four senses

The five senses are all simulated with actions. Sight is so informative that it is handled by a whole range of actions: "looking", which describes the general scene; "examining something", which takes a closer look at a specific thing; "looking under something", and so on.

The other senses have one action each: "listening to something", "touching something", "tasting something" and "smelling something". It makes no sense to touch or taste the general scene, but listening and smelling are a different matter: we often just listen, without listening to anything specific. If the player types the command "listen", Inform understands that as listening to the current location: similarly for the bare command "smell". Thus:

> Instead of listening to the Seashore, say "The song of gulls."

> Instead of smelling the Cave, say "Salt and old seaweed."

(Note the difference between this and saying:

> Instead of listening in the Seashore, say "The song of gulls."

With this rule, even typing "listen to shell" when at the Seashore would result in the song of gulls: fine if the gulls drown all else out, but otherwise incongruous.)

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| Example The Art of Noise Things are all assigned their own noise (or silence). Listening to the room in general reports on all the things that are currently audible.

This example involves redesigning the LISTEN command, removing its built-in function and replacing that with something more ambitious. We will learn more about how to do this later on. "The Art of Noise" A thing has some text called sound. The sound of a thing is usually "silence". The block listening rule is not listed in the check listening to rules. Carry out listening to something: say "From [the noun] you hear [the sound of the noun]." Instead of listening to a room: if an audible thing can be touched by the player, say "You hear [the list of audible things which can be touched by the player]."; otherwise say "Nothing of note." Definition: a thing is audible if the sound of it is not "silence". Before printing the name of something audible while listening to a room: say "[sound] from the " The Sharper Image is a room. The pet rock is a thing in the Sharper Image. The toy car is a thing in the Sharper Image. The sound of the car is "whirring and zooming". The plastic widget is a thing in the Sharper Image. The sound of the plastic widget is "bleeps and bloops". The pointless gadget is a thing in Sharper Image. The sound of the pointless gadget is "buzzbuzzbuzz". The soundproof case is a transparent openable container in the Sharper Image. It is closed and fixed in place. Test me with "listen / listen to rock / listen to car / get all / open case / put all in case / listen / close case / listen / listen to car".

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