Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [TADS] How to deal with a long hall with multiple doors
From: argus@see.the.sig (T Raymond)
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Dana Clarke was overheard typing about:

> The player will be presented with a very long, straight hallway.
> The hallway has numerous doors and open archways on either side.
> Further, the player will have no way of knowing where these doors
> and archways lead (so I cannot refer to them with destination
> names) - they are simply doors and archways for the player to
> enter.

Even without a unique reference, one would tend to count the doors to
give themselves some way to distinguish them. At least that's how I
got myself around the hospital in areas that weren't labeled because
they weren't everyday use areas for the average person.

As we read left to right, I would start counting from the first door
on my left. Of course this leads to a problem in that the numbers
would all be reversed if you turn around or enter from the other end
of the hall.


  If I treat the hallway as a single room (which seems
> fairly logical to me since that is how in real life we would view
> it) then there are far too many east and west exits (since you
> can only have one east and one west).

Nothing says you can have only one, but you then need a way to tell
them apart, both for coding and for the player.

  If I break the hallway up
> into "mini" rooms (each just large enough to have one east and
> one west exit), then the player will have to move north or south
> several times to effectively move along the hallway to get to the
> individual doors and archways.

While this sounds like the most mimesis offensive possibilty, if you
think about it, in reality you do move farther down the hall looking
for whatever door you need. We just don't go along saying "gee this
isn't it, go north". (ok, on bad days I might have said something
like that ;)

> 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?

I think it might be the easiest way to code it. From personal
experience, I wouldn't find this unrealistic. As a player, I would be
somewhat conditioned to this sort of thing. In TADS, you can pass
messages before the actual travel, which would help alleviate the
thought of unreal feeling.

In this example, the first line is passed by your move code, the
second line is your hallway rooms general descption:
>n
You move into the long north corridor.
There are several doors on either side of the hall.

>n
You move farther along the hallway.
There are several doors on either side of the hall.

(theoretically you can reach the doors on the east and west doors in
the previous and following sections of the hall by moving
ne,se,nw,sw, you'd just take a step or two first. Actually, it's not
theoretical, in any long hallway you would do just that, you just
don't stop and think about it.)

> If you have a better solution, please let me know as this method
> seems awfully contrived to me.

Unfortunately, I can't think of one. But hopefully this little look
from the eyes of someone who has worked in hospitals and schools,
both with hallways simila to what you are describing will help you.
:)

Tom
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Tom Raymond                        af956 AT osfnDOTorg
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