Divorcing THROW from DROP

Authoring Inform 7
1

Hey All–

So I have a puzzle where the player needs to THROW something AT something. And I have that working fine. The problem is that simply throwing the object drops it, of course. If the player throws something, I’d like to clue them to try throwing it at something. But I have been messing with this for a long time, and I can’t figure out how to have both THROW and THROW AT give custom replies.

I’ve tried redefining throwing, putting in a “rule for supplying a missing second noun while throwing”, an “instead of throwing something” rule… I simply can’t figure it out.

Thanks!

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The Standard Rules say:

[ ... other uses of drop elided ... ]
Understand "drop [something preferably held] at/against [something]" as throwing it at.
Understand the commands "throw" and "discard" as "drop".

So throw and discard are aliases for drop and can be used anywhere you can use drop. So drop deadly ninja throwing stars against enemy is a weird but functional way to throw shuriken at someone.

Those rules also reflect that there isn’t a throwing action, just a throwing it at action.

So first you have to undo “throw” just being an alias for “drop”.

Understand the command "throw" as something new.

Now throw has no meaning at all, so you have to restore throw at, which had already been working for you, by imitating the drop... at/against line.

Understand "throw [something preferably held] at/against [something]" as throwing it at.

And then you just need your own throwing action.

Throwing is an action applying to one carried thing.
Understand "throw [something preferably held]" as throwing.
To throw is a verb.
Report throwing: say "[We] [throw] [the noun].".
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3

Thanks! I had a lot of this in trying to redefine it, but not all. Ack. I know I did something like this in an earlier project, but I couldn’t find it. It ticks me off when I have to relearn something I should already know, but then again, I am old as dirt and my brain is leaky.

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4

I wanted to make a joke about annulments here, but it turns out divorce was appropriate.

Nah, this is reinforcement! You can’t learn everything in one go, especially if the goes are not immediately adjacent to each other.

-Wade

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5

Thanks for enabling my space-cadetness. I’ve been filing taxes for a million years now, but I have to relearn how every. single. year. But of course I can remember every word of the Lee Press-On Nails commercial from the summer I was 14 and had surgery that kept me in bed for a month watching TV.

6

…Limbs?

7

A press-on extra arm would be great. I wish for an extra arm every day. Maybe the Lee company will come up with those.

8

I7 has you covered!

An arm is a kind of thing.
Three arms are a part of every person.
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9 
Pressing it onto is an action applying to one carried thing and one thing.
Carry out pressing a limb onto a person…
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