Straw Into Gold

Example 305

★★★

Creating a Rumpelstiltskin character who is always referred to as "dwarf", "guy", "dude", or "man" -- depending on which the player last used -- until the first time the player refers to him as "Rumpelstiltskin".

Play/modify in Borogove

Play in Quixe

"Straw Into Gold"

The Cell is a room. Rumpelstiltskin is an improper-named man in the Cell. Rumpelstiltskin can be identified or unidentified. Rumpelstiltskin is unidentified.

R-name is a kind of value. The R-names are dwarf, guy, dude, and man-thing. Rumpelstiltskin has an R-name. Understand "[R-name]" as Rumpelstiltskin.

Our example is slightly complicated by the fact that "man" is a name already known to Inform, so we can't re-use it as a kind of value. This is possible to work around, though:

Understand "man" as man-thing.

Now we borrow from the Activities chapter to look at the exact wording of the player's command:

After reading a command:
   if the player's command includes "[R-name]",
      now the R-name of Rumpelstiltskin is the R-name understood;
   if the player's command includes "Rumpelstiltskin":
      now Rumpelstiltskin is identified;
      now Rumpelstiltskin is proper-named.
 
Rule for printing the name of Rumpelstiltskin when Rumpelstiltskin is unidentified:
   if the R-name of Rumpelstiltskin is man-thing:
      say "man";
   otherwise:
      say "[R-name]".
 
Test me with "x dwarf / x guy / x dude / look / x rumpelstiltskin / look / x man".

Test me with "x dwarf / x guy / x dude / look / x rumpelstiltskin / look / x man".

Cell
You can see a dwarf here.

>(Testing.)

>[1] x dwarf
You see nothing special about the dwarf.

>[2] x guy
You see nothing special about the guy.

>[3] x dude
You see nothing special about the dude.

>[4] look
Cell
You can see a dude here.

>[5] x rumpelstiltskin
You see nothing special about Rumpelstiltskin.

>[6] look
Cell
You can see Rumpelstiltskin here.

>[7] x man
You see nothing special about Rumpelstiltskin.