Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!torn!nott!emr1!calzonet
From: calzonet@ccrs.emr.ca (christopher calzonetti)
Subject: Re: Teleportation? Magic words? Not really! (was: Original Adventure)
Message-ID: <1993Aug13.133044.20336@emr1.emr.ca>
Sender: news@emr1.emr.ca
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Organization: Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Ottawa
References: <243rfrINN62o@life.ai.mit.edu> <1993Aug11.205402.27071@nomina.lu.se> <neilg.745186283@sfu.ca>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 13:30:44 GMT
Lines: 42

In article <neilg.745186283@sfu.ca> neilg@malibu.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy) writes:
>magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>
>>a) "Shorthand movement commands", that move you a short distance (a
>>few rooms away), when you can be assumed to know the way already, and
>>without needing any supernatural "teleportation" to explain the result
>>of the command. The command to be typed should be trivially possible
>>to infer from the situation; e.g. it could be just the rule that
>>"typing the name of a room brings you there if you're not too far
>>away". 
>
> I'd love to be able to implement a feature like this in my TADS game.
>In Infocom's Suspended you could tell the robots to go to various
>places and they'd toddle off on their own and let you know when you
>got there. I'd like to be able to let the player type, say, "Go to the
>doughnut store." The game would then move the player to the doughnut
>store, incrementing moves as necessary. If something happens - a fuse
>goes off, say, then the game would stop and let the player respond. If
>there's an obstacle - a closed door, perhaps - then the game would try
>to remove the obstacle (unlock and open a locked door maybe) or stop
>if the obstacle is impassable. And, of course, if the player had never
>been to the doughnut store in the current incarnation then the game
>would respond with "I don't know where that is" or whatever. This
>command would appear to the user as an extension of the "go" command.
>S/he could just type "go to x" or "run to the mad scientist's
>laboratory" and off they'd go.
>
Firebird/Rainbird's Knight Orc had a feature like this.  You could type "go
to bridge" and it would take the shortest distance there, letting you see
the intermediate rooms and objects as it took you there.  The problem with
this was, it could sometimes take you somewhere you've never been before.

> (boy the traffic in this group suddenly seems to have skyrocketed
>overnight, hasn't it? Weird. Maybe it was timed to coicide with the
>supposed hail of meteors last night...)

I dunno.  It was too cloudy here to get a good view.  It could have been a
cruel hoax to deprive us all of sleep and make us late for work the next
day.
-- 
Christopher Calzonetti, calzonet@ccrs.emr.ca
		/EARTH is 98% full.  Please delete anybody you can.
