Apples

Example 368

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Prompting the player on how to disambiguate otherwise similar objects.

Inform by default detects whether two objects can be disambiguated by any vocabulary available to the player. If so, it asks a question; if not, it picks one of the identical objects at random.

Generally this produces good behavior. Occasionally, though, two objects have some distinguishing characteristic that doesn't appear in the object name. For instance, suppose we've created a class of apples that can be told apart depending on whether they've been bitten or not:

An apple is a kind of thing. Consumption is a kind of value. The consumptions are pristine and bitten. An apple has a consumption. The description of an apple is "It is [consumption]."
 
Understand the consumption property as describing an apple.

The player can meaningfully type

>EAT BITTEN APPLE

>EAT PRISTINE APPLE

but if he types

>EAT APPLE

Inform will, annoyingly, ask

Which do you mean, an apple or the apple?

This gives the player no indication of why Inform is making a distinction. So here we add a special "printing the name" rule to get around that situation:

Play/modify in Borogove

Play in Quixe

"Apples"

Orchard is a room.

An apple is a kind of thing. Consumption is a kind of value. The consumptions are pristine and bitten. An apple has a consumption. The description of an apple is "It is [consumption]."

Understand the consumption property as describing an apple.

Before printing the name of an apple while asking which do you mean: say "[consumption] ". Before printing the plural name of an apple while asking which do you mean: say "[consumption] ".

The player carries three apples.

Instead of eating a pristine apple (called the fruit):

say "You take a satisfying bite.";

now the fruit is bitten.

Instead of eating a bitten apple (called the fruit):

say "You consume the apple entirely.";

now the fruit is nowhere.

Inform will also separate the bitten from the pristine apples in inventory listings and room descriptions, even though it's not clear why; we can improve on that behavior thus:

Before listing contents: group apples together.
 
Rule for grouping together an apple (called target):
   let source be the holder of the target;
   say "[number of apples held by the source in words] apple[s], some bitten".
 
Before printing the plural name of an apple (called target):
   let source be the holder of the target;
   if every apple held by the source is bitten, say "bitten ";
   if every apple held by the source is pristine, say "pristine ".
 
Test me with "i / eat apple / i / eat apple / pristine / i / eat apple / pristine / i".

Test me with "i / eat apple / i / eat apple / pristine / i / eat apple / pristine / i".

Orchard

>(Testing.)

>[1] i
You are carrying:
three pristine apples

>[2] eat apple
You take a satisfying bite.

>[3] i
You are carrying:
three apples, some bitten

>[4] eat apple
Which do you mean, the bitten apple or a pristine apple?

>[5] pristine
You take a satisfying bite.

>[6] i
You are carrying:
three apples, some bitten

>[7] eat apple
Which do you mean, a bitten apple or the pristine apple?

>[8] pristine
You take a satisfying bite.

>[9] i
You are carrying:
three bitten apples