3.9. Passers-By, Weather and Astronomical Events

| Chapter 3: Place |

| 3.9. Passers-By, Weather and Astronomical Events

Out of doors, nature is seldom still. Clouds scull by at random, as in Weathering, and provide some variety in what would otherwise be lifelessly static room descriptions. In much the same way, passers-by and other diversions make a city street a constant bustle: see Uptown Girls for this human breeze. A more nagging sense of atmosphere can be experienced in Full Moon.

Orange Cones offers traffic that is present on every road in the game unless a room is marked off with orange cones -- and this is allowed to change during play.

Night and Day and Totality each schedule celestial events to provide a changing display in the sky above, and this time running like clockwork rather than at random.

See Scene Changes for meteors and a moon-rise

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| Example Weathering The automatic weather station atop Mt. Pisgah shows randomly fluctuating temperature, pressure and cloud cover. |
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132
| Example Uptown Girls A stream of random pedestrians who go by the player. |
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157
| Example Full Moon Random atmospheric events which last the duration of a scene. |
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120
| Example Orange Cones Creating a traffic backdrop that appears in all road rooms except the one in which the player has laid down orange cones. |
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164
| Example Night and Day Cycling through a sequence of scenes to represent day and night following one another during a game. |
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Suppose we want to have a sequence of nights and days in our game, with one scene to govern each daylight condition. "Night and Day" The sun is a backdrop. It is everywhere. The description is "Currently out of sight." Night is a recurring scene. Night begins when play begins. Night begins when Dusk ends. Night ends when the time since Night began is 3 minutes. Notice that our two conditions for the beginning of Night are not in conflict: it will be night-time when the game begins, and then night will also recur every time the Dusk scene ends. When Night begins: say "The sun falls below the horizon and the temperature drops abruptly to well below zero."; now the description of the sun is "Currently out of sight." Dawn is a recurring scene. Dawn begins when Night ends. Dawn ends when the time since Dawn began is 1 minute. When Dawn begins: say "The sun appears on the horizon."; now the description of the sun is "It is tiny and weak.". Day is a recurring scene. Day begins when Dawn ends. Day ends when the time since Day began is 3 minutes. When Day begins: say "The sun is now properly up." Dusk is a recurring scene. Dusk begins when Day ends. Dusk ends when the time since Dusk began is 1 minute. When Dusk begins: say "The sun has passed across the sky and is on the verge of setting." Cratered Landscape is a room. "The ground here is [if Night is happening]dim silver, with the craters visible as darker splotches[otherwise]the color of dried blood; here and there it is also rippled by impact craters[end if]. The horizon curves visibly." Test me with "z / z / z / look / x sun / z / z / z / z / z / z / z". If we run this example and then have a look at the scenes index, we'll see that the cycle is listed through thus: Night (recurring) Dawn (recurring) Day (recurring) Dusk (recurring) Night with the second "Night" in italics, to indicate that it is a repetition of the same scene that has already been listed above.

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| Example Totality To schedule an eclipse of the sun, which involves a number of related events. |
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