I don't know how to describe this in one brief sentence [solved]

Authoring Inform 7
1

Here’s my code:

some old trunks are scenery in Cluttered Tunnel.

understand "trunk" as some old trunks.

the description of some old trunks is "On the ground, some old trunks full of who-knows-what clutter the area."

instead of opening some old trunks:
     try searching some old trunks.

instead of searching some old trunks for the first time:
	say "You take a moment to open a couple of the trunks and peer inside. Mostly, you find more old clothes but in one, you find a pack of yellowed newspaper clippings which you grab.";
	now player carries pack of newspaper clippings.

instead of searching some old trunks for more than the first time:
	say "There's nothing of use in them, you've decided."

Here’s what I get:

x trunk
On the ground, some old trunks full of who-knows-what clutter the area.

open it
It isn’t something you can open.

open trunk
You take a moment to open a couple of the trunks and peer inside. Mostly, you find more old clothes but in one, you find a pack of yellowed newspaper clippings which you grab.

Why did “open it” fail?

Thanks for listening.

2

Since the trunks are defined with “some” instead of “a”, Inform assumes they’re plural, and therefore should only match the pronoun “them” instead of “it”. OPEN THEM should work fine.

If you say “the old trunks are ambiguously plural”, both OPEN THEM and OPEN IT will work.

3

I added this line to the code and it compiled but I’m getting the same mis-firing.

4

It looks like this only works the other way: with a singular-named thing, ambiguously plural thing will cause “them” to be set, but with a plural-named thing, ambiguously plural won’t cause “it” to be set. I think this works:

The trunk is scenery in the cluttered tunnel.
The printed name of the trunk is "old trunks".
The indefinite article of the trunk is "some".
The trunk is ambiguously plural.
Understand "old", "trunks" as the trunk.
2 Likes
5

Thank you for the solution. I’m sure it works. But I took the cheap way out and made it just one trunk instead of numerous trunks. Changes the room description a little, but it’s worth it.
Thanks again, guys, for looking into it. :metal: