10.9. Heat

| Chapter 10: Physics: Substances, Ropes, Energy and Weight |

| 10.9. Heat

Since we prefer not to simulate burnt skin, and it is unsporting to kill a player outright merely for touching a hot object, heat is mostly used as a reason why something cannot be picked up at a given moment. This very basic puzzle is demonstrated in Grilling.

With the naked eye, it is not always easy to detect what is too hot to touch - a point made in both Masochism Deli, where the only solution is to keep picking up potatoes until one doesn't burn, and in Hot Glass Looks Like Cold Glass, where infrared goggles turn the scales.

If a hot object is not to be touched, will it stay hot forever? It might well, if it is a steak on an electric grill, but not if it is a recently-baked apple pie sitting on a window-sill. Entropy simulates the gradual return of temperature to equilibrium.

See Electricity and Magnetism for items which shouldn't be touched because they are hot in a different way

85
| Example Grilling A grill, from which the player is not allowed to take anything lest he burn himself. |
WI

Descriptions of objects can be used in "Instead" rules: we can not only say "Instead of taking the steak", but also "Instead of taking something" or "Instead of taking something which is on the grill". That last rule is useful if, for example, we want to prevent the player from interacting with anything on a specific supporter: "Grilling" The Patio is a room. The Patio contains a grill and an ice chest. The ice chest contains a cold beer. On the grill are a steak and a hot dog. Mom is a woman in the Patio. Instead of taking something which is on the grill: say "'Hey, you'll burn yourself,' says Mom." Test me with "get steak / get all from grill / get all". We could just as easily adapt this rule to affect a container: "Instead of taking something which is in the ice chest," for example. Note also that in older versions of Inform, the pattern "get all from..." was treated differently from "get steak", and had to be accounted for separately. This is no longer the case; this instead of taking... rule will handle all the phrasings which the player might use to try to acquire this object.

315
| Example Masochism Deli Multiple potatoes, with rules to make the player drop the hot potato first and pick it up last. |
WI

318
| Example Hot Glass Looks Like Cold Glass Responding to references to a property that the player isn't yet allowed to mention (or when not to use "understand as a mistake"). |
WI

182
| Example Entropy All objects in the game have a heat, but if not kept insulated they will tend toward room temperature (and at a somewhat exaggerated rate). |
WI

Previous | Contents | Next