| Chapter 16: Understanding |

| 16.9. Commands consisting only of nouns

In every example so far, and in almost all practical cases, the first word in a command which results in an action will be something fixed: a verb, in fact. When we write

> Understand "photograph [something]" as photographing.

we are saying that the first word of such a command will always be "photograph". Occasionally, though, we would like to understand a noun as a command, perhaps in a situation where the command is obvious. If we say:

> Understand "[something]" as examining.

then the command "examine" will be implicit when the player types a bare noun:

> A red box and a blue ball are here.
> > ball
> The blue ball is plaited from many small leather patches.

so that the command "ball" has resulted in the action "examining the blue ball".

This is a feature which should be used sparingly, since it could easily lead to confusion if not carefully explained to the player. By default, it is not used at all.

236
| Example Misadventure A going by name command which does respect movement rules, and accepts names of rooms as commands.

237
| Example Safari Guide The same functionality, but making the player continue to move until he reaches his destination or a barrier, handling all openable doors on the way.

Previous | Contents | Next