4.3. Degrees of certainty

| Chapter 4: Kinds |

| 4.3. Degrees of certainty

When we write:

> A dead end is usually dark.

we are saying that it will be dark rather than lighted unless we should specify otherwise. So it would be fine to add:

> The Tortuous Alcove is lighted.

because although dead ends are usually dark, this one is evidently an exception. On the other hand, if we had originally written

> A dead end is always dark.

then Inform would not have permitted any exception to be made, and would have reported a problem if we had tried to make the Tortuous Alcove lighted. Besides "usually" and "always", we can also employ "seldom" and "never", which are their negatives. Thus, "never lighted" means the same as "always dark".

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| Example Something Narsty A staircase always open and never openable. |
RB

In a game with many staircases, we might want: A staircase is a kind of door. A staircase is always open. A staircase is never openable. Defining the staircase this way means that we will never be able to get away with (for instance) a folding ladder into the attic which is sometimes closed up. So alternatively we might do "Something Narsty" A staircase is a kind of door. A staircase is usually open. A staircase is seldom openable. We could then write a rule so that whenever the player types CLIMB [any staircase], the command is diverted to an enter command, while all other doors refuse to respond to such treatment. Still, this kind is now usable, as we see in this trivial example: The ladder is a staircase. It is above the Woodshed and below the Scary Loft. Test me with "up". But these are refinements for a later chapter.

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| Example Odin Replacing "You see nothing special..." with a different default message for looking at something nondescript. |
RB

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