7.6. Reading and talking

| Chapter 7: Basic Actions |

| 7.6. Reading and talking

A few actions apply not to items alone, but also involve what might be called conversation. The first is the one used for looking things up in books (which is conversation of a kind, even if the author is not present): "consulting ... about ...". For example,

> In the Grove is a book of sybilline verses.

> After consulting the book about "grove", say "The Grove is a sacred yadda, yadda. There's a tree, that sort of thing. Wisdom."

> After consulting the book about "future events", say "It's a bit, what's the word? Delphic."

Note that what follows "about" here is a piece of text in double-quotes, and not the name of something. It can be almost any text at all, and in fact we shall later see (in the chapter on "Understanding") that we can match complicated patterns of words, too.

Similar actions are used for conversing with people:

> After asking the Sybil about "verses", say "She blushes."

> After telling the Sybil about "persians", say "She nods gravely."

> After answering the Sybil that "I am mad", say "She sighs."

These would be produced by commands like "ask sybil about verses", "tell sybil about persians" and "answer i am mad". Answering is very seldom used and can be forgotten about, but the distinction between asking and telling is often worth preserving, which is why there are two different actions for these. If you would prefer to make "tell sybil about X" do the same as "ask sybil about X", the following rule would serve:

> Instead of telling the Sybil about something, try asking the Sybil about it.

Games with a lot of conversation often involve great heaps of rules like the ones above, which can be repetitious to type out. We shall also later see (in the chapter on "Tables") that we can tabulate questions and answers in a much more concise way, if we prefer.

See Topic columns for table-based ways to store and retrieve conversation

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| Example Sybil 1 Direct all ASK, TELL, and ANSWER commands to ASK, and accept multiple words for certain cases. |
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| Example Lucy Redirecting a question about one topic to ask about another. |
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| Example Sybil 2 Making the character understand YES, SAY YES TO CHARACTER, TELL CHARACTER YES, ANSWER YES, and CHARACTER, YES. |
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Inform already understands YES, NO, and SORRY as commands in their own right, which can make things a little sticky when we want a character to ask a question of the player. The most important thing is not to cover some of the possible phrasings while ignoring others. "Replies" The Grove is a room. In the Grove is a woman called the Sybil. Instead of asking the Sybil to try saying no: try saying no. Instead of asking the Sybil to try saying yes: try saying yes. Instead of asking the Sybil to try saying sorry: try saying sorry. Instead of answering the Sybil that "yes", try saying yes. Instead of answering the Sybil that "no", try saying no. Instead of answering the Sybil that "sorry", try saying sorry. Instead of saying yes in the presence of the Sybil: say "She looks interested." Instead of saying no in the presence of the Sybil: say "She looks annoyed." Instead of saying sorry in the presence of the Sybil: say "She looks bored." The complexity arises from the fact that we want to handle both YES and SYBIL, YES. If we only had the latter, 'yes' would be treated as a text given to the Sybil, just as in the commands SAY YES TO SYBIL or ANSWER YES. But because we have defined it as a command (so that the player can use it independently), SYBIL, YES is understood as an order to the Sybil to do the YES action. Fortunately, we can redirect everything, as here, so that the results wind up the same. And if we want yet another variation not covered by the Inform standard: Understand "tell [someone] [text]" as answering it that. Understand "tell [someone] that [text]" as answering it that. But that is a matter for a later chapter. Test me with "yes / sybil, yes / say yes to sybil / answer yes / tell sybil yes / no / sybil, no / say no to sybil / answer no / tell sybil no / sorry / sybil, sorry / say sorry to sybil / answer sorry / tell sybil sorry".

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| Example Costa Rican Ornithology A fully-implemented book, answering questions from a table of data, and responding to failed consultation with a custom message such as "You flip through the Guide to Central American Birds, but find no reference to penguins." |
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