9.12. Cameras and Recording Devices

| Chapter 9: Props: Food, Clothing, Money, Toys, Books, Electronics |

| 9.12. Cameras and Recording Devices

Recording what is going on, for later playing back or examination, is difficult because the range of situations is very complex. Exactly how much information should we store when we make a recording, and will this require problematically large tables? Will it be difficult even to do at all?

The usual approach is to record only basic details of events or situations. In If It Hadn't Been For... the tape recorder preserves only a few different sounds - footsteps, creaking, rustling - rather than capturing exactly the sound of every action taking place in earshot. In Claims Adjustment, we can take up to 36 Polaroid-style photographs, but each is described only by saying what it is a photo of. Thus we can have a photograph of a vase, or even a photograph of a photograph of a vase (because that too is a thing), but not a photograph of a still life in which several items have been gathered together by the player. That would ordinarily require too much storage.

A similar trick, though involving impromptu sculpture rather than photography, can be found in Originals. (The artist magically "manifests" these models rather than sculpting the conventional way in order to avoid the nuisance of carrying around raw materials - wax maquettes and so forth - which would clutter up the example.)

If we rely on indexed text, however, we can store arbitrary descriptions. Mirror, Mirror provides a perfect visual recorder: it remembers a room description exactly as the player saw it at the time.

Actor's Studio provides a video camera that records and time stamps all actions performed in its presence while it is set to record.

262
| Example If It Hadn't Been For... A sound recording device that records the noises made by player and non-player actions, then plays them back on demand. |
WI

311
| Example Claims Adjustment An instant camera that spits out photographs of anything the player chooses to take a picture of. |
WI

354
| Example Originals Allowing the player to create models of anything in the game world; parsing the name "model [thing]" or even just "[thing]" to refer to these newly-created models; asking "which do you mean, the model [thing] or the actual [thing]" when there is ambiguity. |
WI

406
| Example Mirror, Mirror The sorcerer's mirror can, when held up high, form an impression of its surroundings which it then preserves. |
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"Mirror, Mirror" The Sorcerer's Workshop is a room. "The sorcerer's den is a dusty, whispering place. A grandfather clock with skeletal hands reads [the time of day in words]. The floorboards are stained where that porridge just wouldn't come out." The Apprentice's Pantry is east of the Workshop. "This is where the aproned apprentice traditionally makes the camomile tea, cleans out the jackdaw cages and furtively examines purloined artefacts." When play begins: erase the mirror. The player carries a magic mirror. The magic mirror has indexed text called mirror vision. To erase the mirror: now mirror vision of the mirror is "The mirror is polished clean, and has no impression upon it." To say current room description: try looking. To expose the mirror: say "The mirror shines momentarily with a dazzling light.[paragraph break]"; now mirror vision of the mirror is "The hazy image in the mirror preserves a past sight:[line break][current room description]All is distorted and yet living, as though the past and present are coterminous in the mirror." Understand "hold up [something preferably held]" or "hold [something preferably held] up" as holding aloft. Holding aloft is an action applying to one carried thing. Report holding aloft: say "You hold [the noun] aloft." Instead of rubbing the mirror: erase the mirror; try examining the mirror. Instead of holding aloft the mirror: expose the mirror. The description of the mirror is "[mirror vision of the mirror]". Test me with "look / examine mirror / hold up mirror / z / look / x mirror / rub mirror / east / hold mirror up / west / x mirror".

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| Example Actor's Studio A video camera that records actions performed in its presence, and plays them back with time-stamps. |
WI

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