8.3. Changing the status line

| Chapter 8: Change |

| 8.3. Changing the status line

The status line is the black bar along the top of a game being played, which ordinarily displays the current position, score and number of moves taken. Like the command prompt, it is not fixed but results from values which can be changed: the "left hand status line" and "right hand status line".

The default values are "[the player's surroundings]" for the left hand status line and "[score]/[turn count]" for the right hand status line. Score and turn count are numbers which vary in play (more about scoring later); "[the player's surroundings]" is a text substitution really intended for just this purpose:

say "[the/-- player's surroundings]"

This text substitution produces a succinct description of where the player is, be this in darkness, in a lighted room or inside an opaque container such as a large packing case. Example: now the left hand status line is "You: [the player's surroundings]";

These make useful elements to juggle in redesigning the status line, as in the following example:

> When play begins:
> now the left hand status line is
> "[the player's surroundings] / [turn count] / [score]";
> now the right hand status line is "Time: [time of day]".

The text in the right hand status line should be kept no more than 14 letters long, including any spaces. The left hand status line has more leeway, but should still be kept brief.

See Awarding points for scoring

114
| Example Politics as Usual Have the status line indicate the current region of the map. |
RB

Suppose a game with a large map entirely subdivided into regions. We could define: "Politics as Usual" When play begins: now the right hand status line is "[map region of the location]". Washington is west of Idaho. Red is a region. Blue is a region. Idaho is in red. Washington is in blue. Test me with "e / w". Note that, since regions can be stacked, we technically can be within more than one region at once. In the Port Royal example, for instance, the Tavern region is inside the Inland region. If there is any ambiguity, "the map region of the location" will be construed as "the smallest region that the location belongs to": so we would see "Tavern" rather than "Inland" in the status bar, when the player was in the Feathers or the Feathers Bedroom. Some extra finesse would be necessary if the names of map regions were very long or if there were some rooms that were not considered to belong to any region at all.

115
| Example Centered Replacing the two-part status line with one that centers only the room name at the top of the screen. |
RB

Previous | Contents | Next