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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Look vs examine vs search
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Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 19:51:44 GMT
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Claudia M. Gohr (cgohr@post.its.mcw.edu) wrote:
> I have been playing IF for a while now and this thought just occured to me,
> since when do players need to search everything?  It used to be that when
> entering a room, one could look around to survey the scene and then examine
> particular objects and the significance of the object was obvious.  Lately,
> though, a simple examine will just not do.  Now you have to search the
> object in order to determine its' significance. 

Well, which games do you mean?

The Inform library applies subtle psychological leverage: "search" is 
equivalent for "look in" for containers / supporters, and prints "You 
find nothing of interest" otherwise. (I may have missed some cases, but 
that's the idea.)

I think this is fine. "search" should denote looking inside things, or
through things, or out of things. ("look through" also maps to "search",
so it's reasonable that "look through window" and "look through keyhole"
are different from just "examine window" and "examine keyhole." But maybe
for the window they'd be the same after all. I have a certain idea of what
"examination" means; "x window" means looking through the window as well
as at it. But "x keyhole" is iffy. It depends very much on the scene. Is
the player already thinking of peering through keyholes, or should it be a
moment of revelation when he thinks of doing so?)

> I don't know about the rest
> of you but when I think of 'search', I picture myself lookin for something
> in particular, ie. searching a house for a weapon used to commit a crime.  I
> expect when I examine an object that the hidden compartment would be made
> visible and if I don't see it, it's not there, I don't expect to have to
> search the item as well.  What do the rest of you think?

If the object is *not* a container -- I mean not *obviously* a container 
-- then I agree. "examine" and "search" should do the same thing; both 
should reveal the hidden button, or compartment, or whatever. (If it's a 
compartment, then we can revert to the "look in" meaning of search, once 
it's open.)

For a pile of debris, I expect "search" and "examine" to do the same 
thing. 

Now if you're in a time-critical situation, that's different. (Recall 
Deadline, where searching a room could take several minutes.) You could 
point that out by having the default "search" message be "You spend a few 
minutes looking over X..." And of course if you do it during a battle, 
you die.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
