I really wish you could affect out of world actions

Authoring Inform 7
1

My game is meant to be experienced in a single go, without saving and restoring (which would at best make it too easy, at worst break it). So I’ve tried to be cute and:

Instead of saving the game:
	say "Nobody can save you here. Not even yourself.

(this game is meant to be experienced in a single go.)"
	stop the action;
Instead of restoring the game:
	say "Restore what?"
	stop the action;

but it doesn’t let me do that.

2

There are some extensions that can affect it. Also, it doesn’t let you use Instead but you definitely can change them. It requires Carry out and Report, IIRC.

1 Like
3

Thanks. Now it works:

Carry out saving the game:
	say "Nobody can save you here. Not even yourself.

(this game is meant to be experienced in a single go.)";
	stop the action;
Carry out restoring the game:
	say "Restore what?";
	stop the action;
2 Likes
4

Yeah, the idea is that Before, Instead, and After can apply to whole classes of actions, and those rules generally shouldn’t apply to out-of-world actions. For example, “instead of doing anything except waiting during the Trial” shouldn’t stop a player from restarting.

Check, Carry Out, and Report rules only ever apply to single actions, so they work fine on out-of-world actions.

5 
understand "save" as a mistake ("Nobody can save you here. Not even yourself.

(this game is meant to be experienced in a single go.)").

understand "restore" as a mistake ("Restore what?").

Change the grammar and it never even gets as far as processing the action.

4 Likes
6

True, though you have to be careful you’ve gotten them all then! To be safe, also:

Understand nothing as saving the game.

And so on.

1 Like
7

I think just overriding saving/restoring with “carry out” like in the code above I posted is the most straightforward way to do it with less ways to go wrong.