Run-time problem

P11 - Never-set property

Most problems are detected when Inform translates the source text, but this is one of the exceptions, a "run-time problem" which emerges only during play.

It sometimes happens that - although something could in principle have a given property - in fact it doesn't. That makes it impossible to use.

For instance, although every thing is allowed to have a description property, it will only be given one if the source text says so explicitly. That makes writing the description of the noun (say) a little chancy, because it assumes the noun will be a thing which has a description - which might not always be true. If you would like to make sure everything does have a description property, you can always write a sentence like The description of a thing is usually 'Dull.'.