Message-ID: <3c83b4f1_2@corp-news.newsgroups.com>
From: CardinalT <cardinalt@helpmejebus.com>
Subject: Re: [TADS] How to deal with a long hall with multiple doors
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 09:53:20 -0800
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Dana Clarke wrote:

> Is this (breaking the hallway into mini rooms) the only functional way
> to solve this problem or is there a better way that won't be too
> difficult for the player to use and won't cause the introduction of
> too much "unreality" to the work?
>
> If you have a better solution, please let me know as this method seems
> awfully contrived to me.

The essential problem here is, *if* you're going to do the hallway as one
room, how do you distinguish the doors from one another? Forget the
direction problem. That's handled easily enough with an "error" response:

        >go east
        Eastward lie several doors. Which door do you want to enter?

But you have the problem of how to make each door unique. That's really up
to you and I don't think you need me to give you suggestions in that case.
If you want the doors to be identical, though, you're going to have to do
the hallway as a series of rooms. I don't see any way around it...unless
you're just going to randomly choose one of the doors for the player, which
is hardly polite.

The thing to bear in mind is that both the player and the parser always
need to be able to distinguish objects one from another somehow. Each
object has to have some unique identifier. Typically, among similar items,
these are adjectives: the white door, the black door, the green door, etc.

Hugo does have a very nifty class for identical objects, but these are
objects which are identical in every way and never need to be
distinguished: for example, pennies. You can have any number of absolutely
identical penny objects in a game and Hugo will be able to deal with them
in a rational manner. But in, say, spending a penny, there's still no way
to specify *which* penny gets spent. To do that would require some way for
the player to figuratively point at one and say "that one," which in prose
amounts to being able to call it by a unique name.

--
--CardinalT
  Archbishop of Frith and Funeral Barker to the Stars
