Provenance Unknown
Example 107
★★★Suppose we have a series of items that might be stacked on top of one another -- say a heavy television on a rolling cart, and we want the player to be able to move the cart with PUSH TELEVISION EAST just as well as with PUSH CART EAST.
This takes a little redirection, using a setting action variables rule. This is not a kind of rule we've encountered yet, and in fact we won't meet it until the Advanced Actions chapter; it is included here for the convenience of authors who want to modify the effect of pushing without reading that far ahead:
"Provenance Unknown"
Setting action variables for pushing something to:
if the noun is enclosed by a pushable between rooms thing (called the pushed item) which is in the location:
now the noun is the pushed item instead.
This rule says that any time we push an object that is on top of a stack of pushable objects, we should transfer the action to the item at the bottom of the stack.
The rest is merely a test case.
The heavy golden idol is on a roller board. The roller board is on a hovercraft.
The hovercraft, the tea trolley, and the skateboard are pushable between rooms.
The hovercraft is in Zeta Proximan Dig Field.
Zeta Proximan Dig Field is a room. "During the day, the field is massed with sweating native workers, overseers, and officials from central command. Now the spades, trowels, brushes, metal detectors, ground probes, plumb lines, and sighting tripods have been laid aside.
All that remains are the trenches and the fine grey dust that blows slowly across them; the moonlight; and the just-emerging outlines of an ancient and alien wall."
The Hover-Road is west of the Dig Field. "A long road hastily laid down, stretching east to west, from the dig site toward the safety of the city."
When play begins:
say "You have, at last, loaded your illicit cargo without setting off any of the many and sensitive alarms set here; now it remains only to sneak out of the area, under the light of Zeta Proxima's lone green moon."
Test me with "push idol west / look / push roller board east / look".
Test me with "push idol west / look / push roller board east / look".
Zeta Proximan Dig Field
During the day, the field is massed with sweating native workers, overseers, and officials from central command. Now the spades, trowels, brushes, metal detectors, ground probes, plumb lines, and sighting tripods have been laid aside.
All that remains are the trenches and the fine grey dust that blows slowly across them; the moonlight; and the just-emerging outlines of an ancient and alien wall.
You can see a hovercraft (on which is a roller board (on which is a heavy golden idol)) here.
>(Testing.)
>[1] push idol west
Hover-Road
A long road hastily laid down, stretching east to west, from the dig site toward the safety of the city.
>[2] look
Hover-Road
A long road hastily laid down, stretching east to west, from the dig site toward the safety of the city.
You can see a hovercraft (on which is a roller board (on which is a heavy golden idol)) here.
>[3] push roller board east
Zeta Proximan Dig Field
During the day, the field is massed with sweating native workers, overseers, and officials from central command. Now the spades, trowels, brushes, metal detectors, ground probes, plumb lines, and sighting tripods have been laid aside.
All that remains are the trenches and the fine grey dust that blows slowly across them; the moonlight; and the just-emerging outlines of an ancient and alien wall.
>[4] look
Zeta Proximan Dig Field
During the day, the field is massed with sweating native workers, overseers, and officials from central command. Now the spades, trowels, brushes, metal detectors, ground probes, plumb lines, and sighting tripods have been laid aside.
All that remains are the trenches and the fine grey dust that blows slowly across them; the moonlight; and the just-emerging outlines of an ancient and alien wall.
You can see a hovercraft (on which is a roller board (on which is a heavy golden idol)) here.
During the day, the field is massed with sweating native workers, overseers, and officials from central command. Now the spades, trowels, brushes, metal detectors, ground probes, plumb lines, and sighting tripods have been laid aside.
All that remains are the trenches and the fine grey dust that blows slowly across them; the moonlight; and the just-emerging outlines of an ancient and alien wall.
You can see a hovercraft (on which is a roller board (on which is a heavy golden idol)) here.
>(Testing.)
>[1] push idol west
Hover-Road
A long road hastily laid down, stretching east to west, from the dig site toward the safety of the city.
>[2] look
Hover-Road
A long road hastily laid down, stretching east to west, from the dig site toward the safety of the city.
You can see a hovercraft (on which is a roller board (on which is a heavy golden idol)) here.
>[3] push roller board east
Zeta Proximan Dig Field
During the day, the field is massed with sweating native workers, overseers, and officials from central command. Now the spades, trowels, brushes, metal detectors, ground probes, plumb lines, and sighting tripods have been laid aside.
All that remains are the trenches and the fine grey dust that blows slowly across them; the moonlight; and the just-emerging outlines of an ancient and alien wall.
>[4] look
Zeta Proximan Dig Field
During the day, the field is massed with sweating native workers, overseers, and officials from central command. Now the spades, trowels, brushes, metal detectors, ground probes, plumb lines, and sighting tripods have been laid aside.
All that remains are the trenches and the fine grey dust that blows slowly across them; the moonlight; and the just-emerging outlines of an ancient and alien wall.
You can see a hovercraft (on which is a roller board (on which is a heavy golden idol)) here.