I7: Setting a variable to a specific number.

Authoring Inform 7
1

I know how to increase a variable, decrease a variable, and check if a variable is a certain number…but how do I set a variable to a specific number (i’ve tried “set subject to 1” but it doesn’t work).

P.S A separate problem. A Star Tattoo is a kind of thing. Every person has a Star Tattoo. It can be red, green, yellow, black or whathaveyou (this is the colour value). It can also be big, medium or small (this is the size value).

How do I reference these values in a printed description (remember, EVERY person has one, and each one is a different colour or size).

2

You can set a variable just with ‘x is y’. To get the color property you can do something like this:

"Star Tattoo" 

The Concholarium is a room. 

The arms of the star is a number that varies. The arms of the star is 1. 

A star tattoo is a kind of thing. A star tattoo is part of every person. A star tattoo can be red, black, or yellow (this is the tattoo color property). 

A person called Janice is here. The tattoo color of Janice's star tattoo is red.

The description of Janice is "You have a vague feeling that her star tattoo is [the tattoo color of Janice's star tattoo] with [arms of the star] arms."

test me with "x Janice".

edit:

If you want to define a similar default description for all people, you could also do something like this:

The description of a person is "You have a vague feeling that [the noun] has a [color guess] star tattoo."

to say color guess:
	let item be the item described;
	let star be a random star tattoo which is part of the item;
	say the tattoo color of the star.

That to say phrase is a bit of a twist-up, maybe someone else here can clean it up.

3 
now subject is 1;
4

@George: Is there a way to do it so you examine the actual tattoo itself? Like…

EXAMINE JANICE’S TATTOO
“Janice has a big, red star tattoo on her shoulder.”

Where the base sentence would be something like “[person] has a [size], [colour] tattoo on her shoulder.” ?

5

I recommend looking up these kinds of questions on the Google Groups interface to RAIF, as usually you can find a similar question there. For example I searched for ‘owner part’ here:

groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction

And got the answer pretty quickly, which is:

Include Plurality by Emily Short

The description of a star tattoo is "[holder of the noun] has a [tattoo color of the item described] tattoo on [its-their] shoulder."

The plurality thing is an extension. You’ll need to say ‘Janice is a woman’ or ‘A woman called Janice is here’ for that to work.