And conversely this needs something like a
Instead of going southwest from the Lightless Shaft when the brand is not lit, say "You made it this far with its inanimate assistance, so why not continue your travels for a while with the Obsidian Cat in your retinue?"I have nothing to add, I just needed to contribute at least two cents for posterity. This is the first Inform 7 code I’ve written since the Ghost Town Redux contest of 2007!
This is great fun, I have no idea where this is going. Who’s Jack? Is he the father? Is this a broken family story? And I thought the “mercifully incomplete” brand was a hint that the player character was an escaped slave. But then what’s this with the magic obsidian cat and the glowing brand? Magic? Or is this some sort of nano-tech stuff?
Anyway, I tried playing it through and found myself doing “x shoulder” when it starts tingling, and I would not mind some more nudging that I need to do something to the hands of that skeleton. So here goes;
[the player]
A shoulder is part of the player. The description is "On your right shoulder is an incomplete brand."
[at the skeleton]
instead of searching the skeleton:
say "You carefully inspect the remains but find nothing more of interest.";
instead of searching the skeleton when the hands are closed:
say "The body is little but dry bones, and can hardly hide anything. Except... is there something in the hands?";
Instead of doing something other than examining to the hands for the first time:
say "You pry the fingers apart, eliciting a noise like that of cracking walnuts from the hapless skeleton. Something slips from its grasp and falls to the ground.";
now the hands are open;
now the obsidian cat is in the Cave Entrance.
Some fangs are part of the skeleton. The fangs are plural-named and scenery. The description is "The dead skull almost seems to be smiling, with two inch-long fangs extending from the upper jaw. They tell you two things: that the body once was a man -- and that he was of your kind. Women don't have fangs, nor do human men (like Jack).".
Some vines are scenery, here.
[somewhere - at the end]
Section - test - Not for release
test cave with "ne / x crack / i / put blade in crack / look / enter tunnel / x body / x hands / open hands / look / take item / x shoulder / x brand / ne / x brand" in the rocky ledge
test walkthru with "test cave"Nice, peterorme. As for where it’s going, I suspect nobody here quite knows. I’ve tried adding things that, to me, flesh out a place that is just a little bit different from your bog standard everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fantasy. The main character in particular intrigues me.
Also, thanks for the correction, I slipped up there.
== Correction ==
A shoulder is part of the player. The description is "On your right shoulder is an incomplete brand[if the brand is lit and the location is naturally dark], which blazes with a weird light[end if]."
Instead of doing something other than examining or summoning or memscribing to the hands for the first time:
say "You pry the fingers apart, eliciting a noise like that of cracking walnuts from the hapless skeleton. Something slips from its grasp and falls to the ground.";
now the hands are open;
now the obsidian cat is in the Cave Entrance.
The description is "Craning your neck, you look down to see the edges of the brand, bleeding but flawed, mercifully incomplete[if the brand is lit and the location is naturally dark]. You wouldn't see it well, except for the dull, flickering light that smolders deep within the wound[end if]."Also, we may later want to consider refactoring with regions, for more consistent behavior.
== New ==
Instead of memscribing something part of the skeleton, try memscribing the skeleton.
Instead of memscribing the skeleton, say "As the mind passes into death so does it cross the point of memscription, no matter how deft the practitioner."
Instead of dropping the obsidian cat when the location is somewhere naturally dark, say "[one of]You let go of the figurine and are immediately plunged into utter darkness. Luckily, you can tell where it fell by the sound it made. The instant your groping fingers brush across the small statue, you feel the telltale itching of your scar return as it flares to light again.[paragraph break]That was close[or]You'd rather not blind yourself again if you could help it[stopping]."EDIT: Oh, and belatedly, I have to say the morbid part of me quite likes Marshall’s suggestion of Exquisite Corpse as a title.
Updated the source and Parchment, and now we’ve had a vote gone with Marshal’s Exquisite Corpse as the working title. I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets changed a few times throughout the adventure if the creative juices keep flowing. No-one knows where this is going, but I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere interesting. Welcome back to I7 UnwashedMass, and rest assured that any contribution, however succint, is gratefully received. And thanks to peterorme for some tidy clue-dropping.
On a side note, Elias’ habit of marking corrections to distinguish them from new source is incredibly helpful, if everyone could try and follow suit it’ll help me out a lot later on.
Keep up the good writing!
I think we still need a description for lightless shaft, but I’m waiting to see what you more experienced folks are doing about our light source(s). In the meantime, I thought of this for the Lightless Shaft:
The graffiti is scenery in the lightless shaft. The description of the grafitti is "Painted into the wall is a small sentence; written in haste by the look of it: [italic type]cuidado la maldicion![roman type]"Wouldn’t that require something like…
[this is an addition, I think] The description of the lightless shaft is "[if lit] An otherwise unremarkable passageway, someone seems to have scrawled a message on one wall.[end if]"[this is a modification of the Obsidian Cat description]
The description of the obsidian cat is "[if the cat is handled]Standing about four inches tall, this small statue in the image of a cat carved in obsidian has eyes made from polished garnet. A small symbol is engraved in the base; you feel like you've seen it somewhere before.[otherwise]The dust is so thick over it that you can hardly see[end if]."
Only because when I created the cat it had a copy of the brand on the base - only complete. Because I don’t know where or how, but I feel like if the brand is completed, something awesome should happen.
Yes, I knew it needed a preemptive description.
Here’s my edit. My apologies:
The description of Lightless Shaft is "Heavy timbers hold up the earth that surrounds you in this claustrophobic tunnel. Something is written on the wall here. Passages lead southwest, south, and southeast."Not to be a killjoy, but that condition wouldn’t apply. The rules we have so far prevents dropping the obsidian cat while in a room with the property “naturally dark”.
I have two suggestions. One to change an oversight I made, and another, which is that we name rules for ease of reference. Here:
== Amendment ==
After dropping or inserting when the noun is the obsidian cat (this is the letting go of the cat figurine rule):
say "The instant the figurine leaves your touch, the itching stops.";
now the brand is not lit.
I seem to be getting errors from playfic:
When the game is started:
Then, on the perilous perch:
Submission:
[code]The shorebirds are scenery in the perilous perch. Understand “bird/birds/gull/gulls/cries/whooping/cawing/sound/sounds”, “piercing cries” and “shore bird/birds” as the shorebirds.
Before doing anything other than listening to the shorebirds:
say “You can’t see the birds at the moment, but you can hear their piercing cries from the harbour.” instead.
Before listening to the shorebirds:
say “[one of]You’ve never liked those gulls, always whooping and cawing at a their own jokes[or]You recoil from the sound of the shorebirds enjoying their freedom[stopping].” instead.[/code]
Amendment for spelling, if this hasn’t already been clocked:
Report summoning a person:
if the person is not visible, say "[The noun] is suddenly present with you, looking around confusedly.";
otherwise say "There's no response from [the noun]."
The errors are probably my fault. Everything is usually my fault. 
Here’s my next edit. Sorry I keep screwing up the only rule. I’m a very confused man.
Every turn while in Lightless Shaft: say "[one of]The sound of dripping water echoes around you.[or]You think you hear voices from the southwest.[or]It is eerily quiet for a moment.[purely at random]"Updated source and playfic, with the exception of the untriggerable rule. I’m not getting any playfic.com errors at all in Firefox, is anyone else seeing them?
Marshall, don’t forget to edit some code into your last two posts to abide by the only rule!
Edit: Wow, fast response! And no need to apologise. I’m being a bit sticklerish about the rule but I think it helps to keep the pace up.
Marshall, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to tweak your description:
The description of Lightless Shaft is "Heavy timbers hold up the earth that surrounds you in this claustrophobic tunnel. There is some writing on the wall here. Passages lead southwest, south, and southeast."Just because if we have “something is written on the wall” it doesn’t give the player any guidance as to what noun to use to examine the graffiti.
Which means we need to add:
Understand "writing" as the graffiti.I personally think all games should have an “exits” command. At least during development! There’s probably room for improvements.
== new ==
section listing exits and enterables
To say enterable list:
if an enterable container (called playerbox) encloses the player:
say "You could try exiting from [the playerbox].";
otherwise:
let L be the list of enterable things in the location of the player;
if L is not empty:
say "You could try entering [L with definite articles]. ";
To say exit list:
say "Obvious exits from [the location]: [line break]";
repeat with way running through directions:
let place be the room way from the location;
if place is a visited room:
say "[way] to [the place][line break]";
otherwise if place is a room:
say "[way][line break]";
listing enterables is an action applying to nothing.
Understand "enterables" as listing enterables.
carry out listing enterables: say enterable list.
listing exits is an action applying to nothing.
Understand "exits" as listing exits.
carry out listing exits: say "[exit list][enterable list]";I don’t know whether it’s too early to do this, but here’s an idea about what this might be about. This is just an idea, I don’t want to take over this show, and if you don’t want to start thinking about the larger picture yet just skip over this.
[spoiler]CENTURIES AGO (like, 21st century), some people managed to break through to another, magical realm - using some combination of age-old magic and cutting edge technology. This discovery was seized upon by the Military-industrial complex and basically a bunch of troopers were sent there to check things out. They were equipped with bizarre equipment that is (to quote Arthur C Clarke) “indistinguishable from magic” - stuff that looks like tattoos, obsidian figurines and mystically summoned spiritual guides, etc. I’m not sure how to rationalize this. Anybody? Anyway - they never returned. The gate was closed. From the other side.
Cut to PRESENT DAY where we have the main character precariously perched on a windy ledge. As we soon discover, she’s pregnant and on the run. Here’s what happend: the humans were just just observed at first, but when they started waving their magic sticks and trying to dominate, the elves and trolls just laughed at them and ate a bunch for breakfast. Some of them survived and blended in with the existing human type population (as everybody knows, humans will sometimes fall between the cracks and end up in the faerie realm).
The main character is a hybrid - hence the bit about how “her kind” has fangs (which is odd, you’d think she’d be part elf or something, but part Fanged Thing is actually cooler and makes for more interesting choices about who’s Good and Evil (hint: nobody is). However, she’s gotten involved with a bunch of people who identify themselves as “pure humans” and are obsessed with finding the way back “home” to good old planet Earth. Jack is one of them, probably the leader. The tattoo on the PC’s shoulder is actually an old emblem that is part of the “earth magic” and Jack and the guys (correctly) think it’s necessary to get past the gates and make it back to earth. Obviously something’s not quite told here - if the PC is secretly a Fanged Thing she probably shouldn’t have that tattoo.
Also other obstacles remain, like actually finding the gate and getting it back online. (This sounds like a crappy stargate SG-1 episode!).
The main character already seems to have made the decision to get away from this particular adventure, and maybe she just wants to get back with some other Fanged Things and party with them. It looks like she happened to find an old human underground shelter though, which is maybe what Jack is looking for. And she might still have feelings for Jack, maybe. Maybe he’s not even all bad, he just doesn’t think going through the gate pregnant is such a grand idea. Or he suspects she (or the baby’s father) is not entirely pure blooded? Maybe he knows her blood is somewhat tainted (and yes, I’m deliberately hinting that the whole Pure Blood thing is really creepy) but he chooses to ignore it because he want to go home to Earth, and he really likes this girl, and he figures, hey, one secretly Fanged Thing is not such as big deal, and maybe we can adopt, or just hope we have girls. Or get a good dentist.
So - onwards to open the gate anyway? Go to Earth? Stand on tiptoes and Kiss Jack goodbye? Or gag and bind him and push him through? Seal the gate forever? You tell me.[/spoiler]
Interesting to see Peterorme’s vision of the emerging story. I’d like to hear anyone else’s thoughts as to where, if anywhere, this could be heading.
Updated source and Parchment. Let me know if anyone gets errors on playfic.com.
My rough idea was rather similar to that of peterorme, really.
[spoiler]My idea was of the world being reshaped by some sort of transdimensional cataclysm. Civilization survived the onslaught of magic and technology and cosmic horror and all the myriad flavors in between, and although it didn’t achieve dominance in this strange new world it definitely did thrive. It was also pragmatic enough that when various splinter groups – not all of them human or even fully organic – joined together, this could actually be done without tribalism immediately destroying the project.
Then again, it didn’t really turn out all that civilized, and privation coupled with the various esoteric disciplines that came from the merging of different universal laws didn’t lend themselves well to rule by consensus. I didn’t see the girl as a hybrid and hadn’t intended for the impression to be given that she too had fangs, but it’s not impossible. Regardless, she has attained one of the disciplines that original humanity did not possess, which is memscribing, the ability to affect and shape how short-term impressions gel into long-term memories. The brand was, as I saw it, something that wasn’t just a mark for others to see, but something that when completed would actually form a working “circuit” for a quasimagical effect, probably one designed to inhibit either her freedom or cognition. It’s also not impossible that the obsidian cat was a thing designed to alert its users to nearby unknown or hostile magic (or whatever it is); the imperfection of the brand is what alters the effect somewhat.
As for how I see Jack? Well, in the player’s head, he’s larger than life, a proper Nemesis. But so far he doesn’t seem to be all that all-powerful. The fact that the pharos might see the player once it’s dark was, much like with the kataphraktos, a factor of indifference rather than enmity: neither would have a reason to not pursue her if Jack paid them to do so.
Of course, Jack could be a much cannier individual within that space than we know. Perhaps he even has understandable reasons for hunting the player? I’m kinda hoping he’ll surprise us.[/spoiler]
== Amendment ==
Some withered hands are part of the skeleton. The hands are plural-named and scenery. The hands can be open or closed. The hands are closed. The description is "[if the hands are closed]They are pressed tight over the body's breast bone[otherwise]Broken, the hands are fixed in impotent supplication[end if]." Understand "fingers/hand/grip/grasp" as the hands.That was pretty silly. Also, the ordering of the obsidian cat bugged me. So let’s fix that.
== New ==
Rule for choosing notable locale objects (this is the tweaked locale priority rule):
repeat with item running through things in location:
if the item is fixed in place, set the locale priority of the item to 4;
else set the locale priority of the item to 5.
and finally
Forgotten Cache is south of Lightless Shaft. "The tunnel swells into a tall, unhospitable-looking chamber. Here, foam-stone bracings and metal reinforcements have replaced the improvised look of the other tunnels. The floor is a perfectly smooth, dull grey. From here, you can go south back to the tunnel shaft."
Some abandoned crates are here. "A pile of old crates are stacked in one corner, looking pitifully few compared to what the room probably held once." They are fixed in place. They are plural-named. The description is "Water has abraded the old pre-upheaval pictograms on their side, but it's definitely something produced for the military[first time]. Which is no wonder, really, given the old stories about sapper regiments making their defiant stand in this region[only]."Here’s a map so far. Lemme know if I have anything wrong!
I promise to edit in some code later. I’m watching Newhart right now.
Ok, here’s my code:
The wagon wheel is scenery in Cave Entrance. The description of the wagon wheel is "The wood is dark with rot."Also, I understand the light source now. I missed that code when reading the thread but I played it and saw how the light happens.
Nice map, and thanks for pointing out an oversight of mine. I forgot to ensure that
The Forgotten Cache is naturally dark.Understand "wood" as the wagon wheel while in Cave Entrance.Hey, is the description of the Forgotten Cache correct re: the line about “south back”? Shouldn’t it be “north”? I could be wrong because I’m high. 
The fallen masonry is scenery in Cave Entrance. The description of the fallen masonry is "Chunks of granite, strewn about."
You’re correct.
== New ==
To decide whether action implies physical contact:
if the current action is listening to something, no;
if the current action is memscribing something, no;
if the current action is summoning something, no;
if the action requires a touchable noun, yes;
if the action requires a touchable second noun, yes;
no.
Instead of doing something to the skeleton when the action implies physical contact:
say "The skeleton is firmly wedged under a mountain of masonry, and will not budge."== Amendment ==
Instead of doing something to the hands when the action implies physical contact for the first time:
say "You pry the fingers apart with a noise like that of cracking walnuts. Something slips from its grasp and falls to the ground.";
now the hands are open;
now the obsidian cat is in the Cave Entrance.