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. |
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92
| Example Lucy Redirecting a question about one topic to ask about another. |
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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. |
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"Cactus Will Outlive Us All" Death Valley is a room. Luckless Luke and Dead-Eye Pete are men in the Valley. A cactus is in the Valley. Persuasion rule: persuasion succeeds. A person has a stored action called death knell. The death knell of Luckless Luke is the action of pulling the cactus. The death knell of Dead-Eye Pete is the action of Luke trying dropping the cactus. Before an actor doing something: repeat with the victim running through people in the location: let the DK be the death knell of the victim; if the DK is not waiting and the current action is the DK: say "It looks as if [the DK] was the death knell for [the victim], who looks startled, then nonexistent."; remove the victim from play. If we leave it at that, then pulling the cactus will kill Luckless Luke but then say "Nothing obvious happens.", which seems like a bit of an anti-climax. So we add a special case response for that one: After pulling the cactus when Luckless Luke was in the location: say "That's a real shame." Test me with "get cactus / drop cactus / luke, get cactus / luke, drop cactus / pull cactus / look".

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