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

131
| Example Weathering The automatic weather station atop Mt. Pisgah shows randomly fluctuating temperature, pressure and cloud cover. |
WI

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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144
| Example Totality To schedule an eclipse of the sun, which involves a number of related events. |
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First we define the events, and then we create a phrase to schedule them: "Totality" At the time when the penumbra appears: say "The sunlight dies away to an eerie, brownish penumbra." At the time when the eclipse begins: say "The moon passes across the disc of the sun, plunging the world into darkness."; now the Chamber is dark. At the time when the eclipse ends: say "The moon passes away from the sun, and a gloomy penumbral light returns."; now the Chamber is lighted. At the time when normal sunlight returns: say "The sun shines once more bright in the sky, not to be eclipsed again on this spot for another thirty-seven years." To schedule an eclipse for (totality - a time): the penumbra appears at two minutes before totality; the eclipse begins at totality; the eclipse ends at three minutes after totality; normal sunlight returns at five minutes after totality. Now we make use of the new phrase: When play begins, schedule an eclipse for 3:27 PM. The Chamber is a room. The time of day is 3:25 PM. Test me with "z / z / z / z / z / z / z / z / z". We shall see much more about creating phrases later. Their advantage is that they enable a complicated sequence of operations to be given a meaningful name, and that they can be re-used many times as needed.

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