Help My Protagonist Escape from Danger

Authoring Inform 7
1 
Understand "run" as up when the location is the throne room.

  1. It’s not a compass direction you need to go in.

  2. The parser chooses a partial match with a command that doesn’t succeed (at least from the player’s perspective) over an exact match with a command that does succeed.

  3. In any case, how do I make this work?

2

From the parser’s perspective it did find an exact match. The standard rules have the line Understand "go" as going. and then later Understand the commands "walk" and "run" as "go".
So if you want to replace this meaning of ``run,’’ you must write Understand the command "run" as something new.
But what you probably want is something completely different: to supply a direction to the going action when one isn’t provided. You can do that with this code:Rule for supplying a missing noun while an actor going in the throne room (this is the flee upwards from the throne room rule): now the noun is up. The flee upwards from the throne room rule is listed before the block vaguely going rule in the for supplying a missing noun rulebook.

3

Or if you only want “run” to be a useful command when in the throne room, this is a more specific solution that unplugs “run” from going in general.

[code]“Runny McRun”

Throne room is a room. “You’re in the throne room. Corinth is up from here.”

Corinth is up from throne room. “You’re in Corinth. The throne room is down from here.”

Understand the command “run” as something new. [detaches ‘run’ from the go action]

Understand “run” as running.

Running is an action applying to nothing.

Check running:
if the player is in the throne room, try going up;
otherwise say “You don’t need to run right now.” [or your alternate message/code here]

Test me with “up / down / run / run”.[/code]

4

Two excellent answers. I think EmacsUser has answered my question as I asked it, whereas severedhand’s answer is probably what I’d prefer. Both teach me something. Thank you.

(Also, now I know to search the documentation for “as something new” I notice there’s an entire chapter on “Understanding” that I seem to have missed.)