Camp Bethel
One use for text alternatives is to change the description of a room after first visiting. We've already seen, in the example "Slightly Wrong", how to do this with "[if visited] … [otherwise] … [end if]". But since the first description is printed once and the second description on all subsequent occasions, we could equally well write
We might also want to liven up the behavior of people and animals, who are probably not doing the exact same thing every time we glance in their direction. There are more complex techniques for modeling the behavior of characters, as we will see in the chapters on Advanced Actions and Activities; but if we just want some textual variety, we might write something like:
And since (textual variation or not) we do want the player to be able to see all these objects:
Jeremy is following a sequence of actions to do an implied task (still somewhat robotically, but it will do for now). Animals might be a bit more capricious, though:
The housefly's description is merely "at random" rather than "purely at random" because we want to show it doing a different thing each turn, whereas Fluffy could plausibly stare out the window for five turns in a row.
There are more complex ways to change and override the initial descriptions of people and things; if text alternatives do not get us far enough, we can turn to the "rule for writing a paragraph about," documented in the Activities chapter.
Another frequent use of text alternatives is to give characters a bit of variety in things they're likely to say many times in the course of a game:
Or, with somewhat more complexity:
Notice that, in that last line, our first option is entirely blank. If we put nothing as an element of the text alternatives list, this means that printing nothing at all is a viable alternative. In fact, we've made this the most common probability out of the decreasingly likely outcomes, so that five times in fifteen, or a third of the time the text is run, there will be no modifier printed at all.
Test me with "look / g / g / g / ask Jeremy about his feelings for me / ask jeremy about his amnesia / tell Jeremy about my unborn child".
You've never been into the kitchen before, though you've spent many an hour in the dining lodge. The place is larger than you would have expected, and it has none of the fake rustic touches of the rest of the camp.
Jeremy stands at his station, peeling white onions.
Fluffy is chasing its tail.
A large housefly lands on a countertop.
>(Testing.)
>[1] look
Camp Bethel Kitchen
A tidy, efficient industrial kitchen, without any of the kitsch rusticity found elsewhere.
Jeremy stands at his station, briskly dicing onions.
Fluffy is chasing its tail.
A large housefly circles Jeremy's chef hat.
>[2] g
Camp Bethel Kitchen
A tidy, efficient industrial kitchen, without any of the kitsch rusticity found elsewhere.
Jeremy stands at his station, chopping celery.
Fluffy is chasing its tail.
A large housefly flies around noisily.
>[3] g
Camp Bethel Kitchen
A tidy, efficient industrial kitchen, without any of the kitsch rusticity found elsewhere.
Jeremy stands at his station, peeling carrots.
Fluffy is chasing its tail.
A large housefly lands on a countertop.
>[4] g
Camp Bethel Kitchen
A tidy, efficient industrial kitchen, without any of the kitsch rusticity found elsewhere.
Jeremy stands at his station, tying fresh herbs together with string.
Fluffy is rubbing itself against your leg.
A large housefly circles Jeremy's chef hat.
>[5] ask jeremy about his feelings for me
"Sorry, I haven't the faintest," Jeremy comments throatily.
>[6] ask jeremy about his amnesia
"I'm afraid you've got me there," Jeremy drawls silkily.
>[7] tell jeremy about my unborn child
Jeremy looks surprised. "That's very interesting!"
As this example (alas) reveals, text alternatives will not go all the way toward making our characters into compelling conversationalists; we will have to wait until we know more about Actions. But at least we have abolished the default responses, and given Jeremy a touch of personality, however witless.