§18.10. Printing the name of something
1. When it happens. Whenever the name of a thing or room is printed.
2. The default behaviour. For items other than the current player, the "printed name" property is printed out; but for the current player, "you" or "yourself" is printed. (That doesn't necessarily mean that the "printed name" of the player is never used. Suppose there are two people, Alice and Bob, and the narrative switches between them: when Alice is the player, she appears as "yourself" but Bob is "Bob"; but when Bob is the player, he is "yourself" and Alice is "Alice".)
3. Examples. (a) A pen which is described differently in inventories:
Rule for printing the name of the pen while taking inventory: say "useful pen".
"Taking inventory" is a condition which is true if that's the current action and not otherwise, so the effect is that the pen is called "a useful pen" only in inventory listings. "While looking" is a similarly useful one.
(b) Italicising the names of novels:
A novel is a kind of thing. Dr Zhivago and Persuasion are novels. Before printing the name of a novel, say "[italic type]". After printing the name of a novel, say "[roman type]".
(c) Telling the time:
After printing the name of the wrist watch while taking inventory: say " (time: [the time of day])".
(d) Merging containers with their contents:
Rule for printing the name of the bottle while not inserting or removing:
if the bottle contains sand, say "bottle of sand";
otherwise say "empty bottle";
omit contents in listing.
This example makes use of a special phrase:
omit contents in listing
This phrase changes the form of an inventory listing, room description, etc., so that it will simply list "a bottle of sand" or "an empty bottle", rather than "a bottle (in which is sand)" or "a bottle (which is empty)". It should be used only when the listing is imminent, and does not have permanent effect.
The clause about not inserting or removing is to prevent messages like "You put the sand in the bottle of sand.", where it's confusing to refer to the bottle as anything other than "the bottle".
![]() | Start of Chapter 18: Activities |
![]() | Back to §18.9. Deciding the concealed possessions of something |
![]() | Onward to §18.11. Printing the plural name of something |
First to lay some groundwork:
And now, with that preparation:
|
|
First to lay some groundwork:
And now, with that preparation:
First to lay some groundwork:
And now, with that preparation:
|
|
|