8.1. Bicycles, Cars and Boats

| Chapter 8: Vehicles, Animals and Furniture |

| 8.1. Bicycles, Cars and Boats

The vehicle kind in Inform refers to an object which can carry at least one person, but is small enough to fit into a single location:

> In the Garden is a vehicle called the motor mower.

We can then apply different rules to a player going somewhere on foot or in the vehicle. Peugeot (a bicycle) is an easy example; No Relation (a car) adds an ignition switch to the vehicle; Straw Boater (a motorboat) gets around areas of lake where travel on foot is not just slower but impossible.

Hover (a sci-fi "hover-bubble") changes the appearance of the landscape when it is seen from inside the vehicle.

See Ships, Trains and Elevators for larger conveyances

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| Example Straw Boater Using text properties that apply only to some things and are not defined for others. |
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104
| Example No Relation A car which must be turned on before it can be driven, and can only go to roads. |
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| Example Peugeot A journey from one room to another that requires the player to be on a vehicle. |
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Let's say that our protagonist is about to flee . Obviously, he can't make the journey on foot; he needs transportation. "Peugeot" Include Rideable Vehicles by Graham Nelson. The Lot is a room. The ten-speed bike is a rideable vehicle in the Lot. We make the ten-speed bike a rideable vehicle because we want to say that the player is on it rather than in it. Then our other room: Cambridge is east of the Lot. And now we borrow from the Actions chapter to prevent travel without the proper equipment: Instead of going to Cambridge when the player is not on the ten-speed bike: say "It's a long journey to Cambridge: you'll never make it on foot." After going to Cambridge: say "You begin pedalling determinedly."; continue the action. Test me with "e / get on ten-speed bike / e".

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| Example Hover Letting the player see a modified room description when he's viewing the place from inside a vehicle. |
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