If a player types “thing” or “something” in the noun slot, for example,
Take something
Drop something
…is there a good way to catch that? Things like
Understand "[text] something" as a mistake
don’t seem to work.
Also, I noticed that if a player types “take things,” that is understood, and the results are different from “take all.” For example, “take things” tries to take component parts of things, while “take all” does not. I’m not sure what to do about that, if anything.
I think I’d go with something like this:
The unspecified object is a privately-named backdrop.
The unspecified object is everywhere.
Understand "something" or "anything" or "someone" or "somebody" or "anyone" or "anybody" as the unspecified object.
Check taking the unspecified object: say "Take what?" instead.
Do you always want it to be a mistake?
My own approach is that I will let people interact with something as ‘thing’ or ‘something’ if I described it using one or both of those words in the prose, usually because its nature wasn’t apparent to the player yet (“There’s something under the wooden plank.”). So I give it that grammar either at the time (Understand “thing” as the apple when the apple is yada yada) or permanently.
I can’t speak to the take all/things issue. I didn’t even know you could type ‘take things’.
-Wade
Presumably that’s just a special case of plural handling. You can type “take apples” or “take chairs” or “take fruits” as well, as long as “apple” and “chair” and “fruit” are kinds of things.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I’ll probably go with a variation on this:
The unspecified-object is a privately-named backdrop.
The unspecified-object is everywhere.
Understand "thing" or "something" or "anything" or "someone" or "anyone" or "somebody" or "anybody" as the unspecified-object.
Before doing something when (the noun is the unspecified-object) or (the second noun is the unspecified-object):
say "I don't know which person or thing you mean. In your command, try naming a particular person or thing in this room, for example, 'X me.'" instead.
[Edited to add in some words I overlooked]
This is a good point. I think I have at least one thing that’s initially referred to as “something,” so I should probably test that. Thanks!
Yeah, I’m wondering if it would give away any secrets. I haven’t experimented with it much.
That looks good, though I don’t understand why you’d remove “somebody” and “anybody” from the synonyms.
Oops, I just overlooked those.
It’s an unfortunate issue in current Inform that will be fixed in the next version. Currently, all kinds get automatic plural names, and all things can be recognized by those, which causes all sorts of problems down the line. “Things” applying to every thing in the game is one of those.
In this case, you can avoid it by setting everything privately-named and applying all synonyms explicitly, but that’s kind of swatting a fly with a sledgehammer and will create a lot more work for you.
Ok, thanks. It sounds like it’s not worth it for me to try to change it, then.
You can also hide it behind a less-likely vocabulary word:
The plural of thing is asdfasdf.
But I don’t think I’ve ever seen this come up before. I doubt players will try it.