7.7. The other four senses

| 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. |
RB

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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