Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!caen!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!newsserver.sfu.ca!sfu.ca!neilg
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: Jorn wants bodyparts!!! (Was: TADS object system ;^)
Message-ID: <neilg.732737239@sfu.ca>
Sender: news@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
References: <C45MCt.LC8@chinet.chi.il.us> <C47Lv4.JEo@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 18:07:19 GMT
Lines: 116

jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger) earnestly types:

>Well, dammit, the teenage-boy-in-me, and the teenage-girl-in-Janet-
>Dailey, clearly *do* want sex in our fantasies, and ***braindead*** is 
>all the technology we have to start with, at this point! ;^)

 Well, fair enough.

>>  [In Neil's game-under-development ...] I didn't see the point
>> of implementing removable underclothes and the like. My game is
>> supposed to be reasonably realistic as they come, but if it turns into
>> a cheap thrill titillation game then it rapidly becomes veeeery boring,
>> IMHO.

>10 trillion romance-novel addicts disagree!

 Well, my point is basically that my game can't be everything for
everyone. I'm not that interested in writing a romance game (in fact
my game has no people in it at all other than the player, simply
because I'd rather have no people than lots of cardboard characters
with whom you can't really interact) or a sex fantasy game or, for
that matter, a horror story or an intense psychological drama or a
touching tale of a boy and his dog, or... whatever. My game has a
specific theme and world in which it operates. And I didn't see the
point of making it try to fit other themes, so I didn't. Sure, romance
novelist fans may find my game quite boring if that's what they're
expecting, but that's not who I'm writing to.

>Seriously, romance without articulate bodyparts has gotta be unbearably 
>dry and prim.

 Right. But as I pointed out, *my* game is not a romance. I wasn't
talking about your proposed game at the time; just mine. Perhaps I
wasn't entirely clear.

>And to eschew underwear (!? ;^) is like building your Ken-doll with the 
>briefs *already painted on*...

 Aw, come on! That's a... how can we put it... low blow? :) So, how much
detail are your characters gonna have, Jorn? Are they going to have
earlobes, genitalia, appendices, toenails, vertebrae? You've got to
stop somewhere, I think. As I remarked on a different thread a while
back, there's only so much you can implement. A game that forced you
to deal with every single bodily function (eating, breathing,
sleeping, excreting, drinking, etc.) would probably be quite dull.
You're only go to put in the things that are more or less relevant to
your game. Guess that's what I'm talkin' about. My game does have
"charming underclothes," but I can't think offhand of any other text
adventure that does. Even Leather Goddesses didn't.

>Well, howdja do it, already?

 The clothing thing? Well, I don't want to post my source, mainly
because I don't think it's very good. It works, but is kind of crufty.

 But basically I maintain three separate lists aside from the adv.t
defined "Me" object, which contains all carried items. Clothing comes
in three types - TopClothes (worn on the upper torso), BottomClothes
(worn on the lower torso) and other. Not very creative names, but only
I have to see them. :) So, for simplicity's sake, there can only be
one BottomClothes item worn at a time. (trousers, shorts, skirt, etc.)
However there are three types of TopClothes, determined by a simple
numerical variable. There are shirts (type 1), over which you can wear
other shirts or anything else. There are jackets and coats (type 2),
over which you can't wear another jacket or coat BUT you can wear a
type 3 item, which is reserved for backpacks and the like. Naturally,
you can only take off an item of TopClothes clothing if it's at the
top of the list, thereby preventing users from removing a coat when a
backpack is worn, etc. Finally there is the "other" category, which
aren't affected by other things. You can wear a pendant or a
wristwatch without affecting your shoes or pants, for example. There
are also simple flags to prevent the user from wearing more than one
pair of footwear or gloves. (my game does get as detailed as including
shoelaces (I was bored one day and added them in on a whim) but
doesn't distinguish between left and right shoes, etc.)

 I then add yet another patch to adv.t (I think around 75% of my adv.t
is modified or replaced in some way or other) so that whenever an item
of clothing is worn it gets added to the appropriate list, and vice
versa when it's taken off. The actual item of clothing is still moved
into the "Me" object, making it easier to deal with inventory
management. The "inventory" verb was changed to make things a bit
easier to read. Thus:


>What am I wearing?
You're wearing a red T-shirt, a pair of jeans and a silver pendant,
and you're carrying a leather jacket.

>Put on the leather jacket.
There's something intensely personal and warm about the jacket, and
the act of putting it on bears the close familiarity of habit.

>Take off my T-shirt.
You're going to have to take off the leather jacket first.

>Remove the pendant.
Okay.  You're no longer wearing the silver pendant.

>inventory
You're wearing a red T-shirt, a leather jacket and a pair of jeans,
and you're carrying a silver pendant.


 Note that the "what am I wearing?" sentence construct only works
because I severely hacked up adv.t to do it. It's kind of a cheap,
hardcoded hack, but I thought it was worth it for some reason...

 Anyway, this is probably getting rather boring. Ironically, the only
reason I have clothes in the game was to permit marginally more
realistic swimming (every tried to swim fully clothed? Hard, isn't
it?) but then I fell down a pernicious slippery slope thereafter.

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)

 
