9.11. Clocks and Scientific Instruments

| Chapter 9: Props: Food, Clothing, Money, Toys, Books, Electronics |

| 9.11. Clocks and Scientific Instruments

The simplest form of clock is a wrist watch. Here is a choice of analogue or digital:

> The player wears a wrist watch. The description of the wrist watch is "It is [the time of day in words]."

> The player wears a digital watch. The description of the digital watch is "It is [the time of day]."

Better clocks would allow us also to set the time, and to stop and start them: see Tom's Midnight Garden.

Scientific instruments provide sharper versions of our own senses. In the case of vision, they allow us to see closer up, or further away. It's a convention of IF that people can normally see only the current location, that is, they cannot see from one location into another. The boundary of the current room is like a horizon, even out of doors (though it's true that there are ways to disguise that with a continuous outdoor landscape). Ginger Beer provides a telescope able to see into other rooms.

Witnessed 2 provides a meter which measures how close a ghost is to the player.

See Continuous Spaces and The Outdoors for more on seeing into adjacent locations

See Heat for infrared goggles

288
| Example Tom's Midnight Garden A clock kind that can be set to any time using "the time understood"; may be turned on and off; and will advance itself only when running. Time on the face is also reported differently depending on whether the clock is analog or digital. |
WI

351
| Example Ginger Beer A portable magic telescope which allows the player to view items in another room of his choice. |
WI

180
| Example Witnessed 2 A piece of ghost-hunting equipment that responds depending on whether or not the meter is on and a ghost is visible or touchable from the current location. |
WI

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