6.14. Remembering, Converting and Combining Actions

| Chapter 6: Commands |

| 6.14. Remembering, Converting and Combining Actions

Sometimes we want Inform to apply a player's action to a different target than the one specified: for instance, directing all (or almost all) commands from the doorknob to the door of which it is a part. Fine Laid demonstrates how to do this. Along the same lines, Lucy shows how to direct a player's conversation action to apply to a new conversation topic.

We can also record a series of actions performed by the player or by another character.

Cactus Will Outlive Us All demonstrates characters each of whom reacts to a very specific provocation; I Didn't Come All The Way From Great Portland Street implements a game show in which the player is not allowed ever to repeat an action he has already performed; and Leopard-skin implements a maze which the player can escape only by performing a specific sequence of actions.

Anteaters provides a peculiar gizmo that can remember actions performed in its presence and force the player to reiterate them.

89
| Example Fine Laid Making writing that can be separately examined from the paper on which it appears, but which directs all other actions to the paper. |
WI

92
| Example Lucy Redirecting a question about one topic to ask about another. |
WI

220
| Example Cactus Will Outlive Us All For every character besides the player, there is an action that will cause that character to wither right up and die. |
WI

422
| Example I Didn't Come All The Way From Great Portland Street In this fiendishly difficult puzzle, which may perhaps owe some inspiration to a certain BBC Radio panel game (1967-), a list is used as a set of actions to help enforce the rule that the player must keep going for ten turns without hesitation, repetition, or deviating from the subject on the card. |
WI

419
| Example Leopard-skin A maze that the player can escape if he performs an exact sequence of actions. |
WI

222
| Example Anteaters The player carries a gizmo that is able to record actions performed by the player, then force him to repeat them when the gizmo is dropped. This includes storing actions that apply to topics, as in "look up anteater colonies in the guide". |
WI

> "Anteaters" A book is a kind of thing. Understand "book" as a book. A book has a table name called the contents. Report consulting a book about: say "You flip through [the noun], but find no reference to [the topic understood]." instead. Instead of consulting a book about a topic listed in the contents of the noun: say "[reply entry][paragraph break]". The Guide to Desert Fauna is a book. The contents of the Guide is the Table of Critters. Table of Critters
> topic | reply
> "spines" | "You flip through the Guide for a while and eventually realise that spines are flora, not fauna."
> "anteater colonies" | "The giant anteater, which grows to six feet in size and can kill a jaguar, is a solitary animal, found in many habitats, including grasslands, deciduous forests and rainforests. It does not form colonies. That's ants. They're actually quite easy to tell apart."
Death Valley is a room. The Guide is in the Valley. The gizmo is in Death Valley. The gizmo has a stored action called idea. The description of the gizmo is "The gizmo is hard to describe, but it projects an idea of [idea]." Before when the player carries the gizmo and the idea of the gizmo is waiting: say "[The gizmo] eagerly soaks up the whole idea of [the current action]."; now the idea of the gizmo is the current action. After dropping the gizmo: say "The percussion of the fall seems to have shaken the gizmo's idea loose! There's nothing for it now but [idea of the gizmo]."; try the idea of the gizmo; now the idea of the gizmo is the action of waiting. Test me with "get guide / look up spines in guide / x gizmo / get gizmo / i / x gizmo / drop gizmo / get gizmo / look up anteater colonies in guide / x gizmo / drop gizmo".

Previous | Contents | Next