17.20. Printing the description of a dark room

| Chapter 17: Activities |

| 17.20. Printing the description of a dark room

1. When it happens. When looking in darkness.

2. The default behaviour. To print "It is pitch dark, and you can't see a thing."

3. Examples. (a) A simple variation of wording:

> Rule for printing the description of a dark room: say "Your eyes can barely make anything out." instead.

(b) More stylishly,

> Rule for printing the description of a dark room: try listening instead.

which produces, for instance,

> Darkness
> You hear nothing unexpected.

(Note that this activity does not come in different forms for different dark rooms: the wording is fixed at "printing the description of a dark room", and we are not allowed to substitute particular dark rooms or assign a "(called ...)" onto the mention of the dark room.)

334
| Example Hohmann Transfer Changing the way dark rooms are described to avoid the standard Inform phrasing. |
RB

Inform automatically keeps track of light and darkness, handling such questions as whether a room is lit, whether the player can see any light sources, etc., and then managing the descriptions accordingly. When the room is dark and no light sources are visible, the player is said to be "in darkness". If we don't specify otherwise, Inform will describe our surroundings in a dark room thus: Darkness It is pitch dark, and you can't see a thing. This is fine in many situations, but we may sometimes want to replace this phrase with something else. "Hohmann Transfer" The Western Hemisphere is a dark room. "The cloud mass covers much of the land on this side of the planet, and a particularly nasty storm is brewing off to the south." The Eastern Hemisphere is west of the Western Hemisphere. The Eastern Hemisphere is east of the Western Hemisphere. The Eastern Hemisphere is north of the Western Hemisphere. The Eastern Hemisphere is south of the Western Hemisphere. "This side of the planet is more ocean than land, with only two continents worthy of the name, and a volcanic archipelago in the north seas." Use full-length room descriptions. Rule for printing the description of a dark room: say "It's night on this side of the planet, so you can make out only the glow of urbanized areas along the seacoasts." instead. Rule for printing the name of a dark room: say "Dark Side" instead. And now a few minor refinements so that we can see what happens when one room becomes dark and the other light: Carry out going: say "You fire the thrusters and loop around to the other side of the planet before settling into a new geosynchronous orbit. Six months and one minute later..." The time of day is 4:55 PM. At 5 PM: now the Eastern Hemisphere is dark; now the Western Hemisphere is lit. Rule for printing the announcement of darkness: say "The planet abruptly spins itself over, exposing its cool underbelly to the sun." Test me with "e / z / z / w / z / z / e".

335
| Example Four Stars An elaboration of the idea that when light is absent, the player should be given a description of what he can smell and hear, instead. |
RB

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