Hey all, how would you, personally, do a cell phone in I7? I’m trying to get an idea of the various ways IF authors would do it; also, any games out there wherein cell phones are implemented well?
Thanks for any thoughts you guys have on the subject!
You might want to take a look at “Example 226 - Four Cheeses” in The Inform Documentation. It deals with telephone connections using reciprocal relations.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply. I did check that out and was kinda unsatisfied, at least with the way I’m thinking a cell should work. I was just wondering how some handle the idea of the player having a cell. Not looking for actual code, but would you have it just something to “consult about” things? Would I even make it a special NPC to make it even more adaptable to “feel” like its communicating? Idk, still kinda new here and I’m tackling my first “modern” story.
I wouldn’t use “consult about” since that seems more like looking something up in a book. Implementing cellular connections in Inform 7 can get quite complex. The simplest way would be to talk to the phone as if it were a person and then deal with the conversations through the narrative.
Hope this helps.
thank you! I will try to keep it simple then, at least to start with.
If the player should be able to talk to different people on the phone, a possible way to implement it (it might or might not be a good way – I haven’t tested it nor thought it through) could be to make it a person variable that you set to whomever the PC is talking to at the moment.
Hey, that helps! I’m gonna make a note of that. So far, I am making it "consult"able as the cell is connected to the internet. but yes, I’m going to need to make it talk to various NPCs as well. Thanks again!
Ever consider Inform 6? This would be a simplistic thing to pull off in that language.
Well, there’s an easy way and a hard way; the easiest options would be, say, a menu of preselected contacts with corresponding keystrokes (“1) dave, 2) mom”), or a “call” verb that will work on select characters or establishments (“call dave”, “call police”, etc.). At the opposite end, you have the fun of trying to code up parseable phone numbers and the like, which I’m attempting right now in inform 6 to little avail. Either way, I feel like interacting with the phone as if it were a person itself would be kind of weird.
Thanks! That does help. I like the “call” verb idea best. 