No Relation

Example 104

★

A car which must be turned on before it can be driven, and can only go to roads.

We need to designate certain rooms as roads. Since the status of being a road will not change during play, we do this with a kind:

Play/modify in Borogove

Play in Quixe

"No Relation"

A road is a kind of room. Definition: a room is offroad if it is not a road.

Instead of going by a vehicle (called the auto) to somewhere offroad:

say "You can't drive [the auto] off-road."

Trafalgar Square is a road. "The Square is overlooked by a pillared statue of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (no relation), naval hero and convenience to pigeons since 1812."

The National Gallery is north of Trafalgar Square. The Strand is east of Trafalgar Square. The Strand is a road.

The car is a vehicle in Trafalgar Square. The ignition is a device. The ignition is part of the car. Instead of going by the car when the ignition is switched off: say "The ignition is off at the moment." Instead of switching on the car, try switching on the ignition. Instead of switching off the car, try switching off the ignition.

Test me with "get in car / n / e / turn on car / n / e / get out / w / n / s / e / get in car / turn off car / w / turn on ignition / w".

Trafalgar Square
The Square is overlooked by a pillared statue of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (no relation), naval hero and convenience to pigeons since 1812.

You can see a car (empty) here.

>(Testing.)

>[1] get in car
You get into the car.

>[2] n
The ignition is off at the moment.

>[3] e
The ignition is off at the moment.

>[4] turn on car
You switch the ignition on.

>[5] n
You can't drive the car off-road.

>[6] e

Strand (in the car)

>[7] get out
You get out of the car.

Strand
You can see a car (empty) here.

>[8] w

Trafalgar Square
The Square is overlooked by a pillared statue of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (no relation), naval hero and convenience to pigeons since 1812.

>[9] n

National Gallery

>[10] s

Trafalgar Square
The Square is overlooked by a pillared statue of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (no relation), naval hero and convenience to pigeons since 1812.

>[11] e

Strand
You can see a car (empty) here.

>[12] get in car
You get into the car.

>[13] turn off car
You switch the ignition off.

>[14] w
The ignition is off at the moment.

>[15] turn on ignition
You switch the ignition on.

>[16] w

Trafalgar Square (in the car)
The Square is overlooked by a pillared statue of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (no relation), naval hero and convenience to pigeons since 1812.

(In the course of the writing of Inform 7, much of Trafalgar Square was pedestrianised, making this example already out of date.)

A further technical note: notice "going by a vehicle" in the above rule, rather than "going by something". A rule such as "Instead of going by something…" will be matched whenever the player tries to go some direction while in an enterable object, whether or not that object is actually capable of movement. This is sometimes useful, but in this case we want the warning to apply only when the player is in a vehicle; if we added Trafalgar Square's statue bases to the scenario, we would not want

You can't drive the pedestal off-road.

So we restrict the rule to "Instead of going by a vehicle…"