This is rather trivial, but I have been wrestling with it for a while…
Here is what I want to do–
In my current game, I have a marble bust that is wearing an article of use to the player. The bust is a supporter, having an initial appearance. What I am trying to do is to inhibit the ‘On the bust is…’ listing, from the description of the bust and the room description, because I have included the article, via text substitutions([if the article is on the bust]…[otherwise]…) in those descriptions. I have looked in the manual about ‘Rule for…’ statements, I have tried all kinds of things, like –
Rule for writing a paragraph about the article while the article is on the bust:
do nothing.
Rule for listing the contents of the bust:
do nothing.
etc etc
When the game compiles the list of nondescript items, it adds tags such as “(open)” or “(empty)” or “(on which is a fish tank)” to the names of containers and supporters. We can suppress or change the “(empty)” tag with the printing room description details of activity, as in
Rule for printing room description details: stop.
You can limit this to specific items (someone chime in please if it’s not “item described”)
Rule for printing room description details:
if the item described is the bust:
do nothing.
For the first thing–omitting the “On the…” from the response to Examining, I simply said –
The examine supporters rule does nothing when examining the bust.
This worked.
I tried your suggestion about room description details(with ‘item described’)–still no dice. I had tried a variation of it–
Rule for printing room description details of the bust:
do nothing.
This did not work. Still getting ‘On the bust is…’ in the room description, after the initial appearance paragraph of the bust(it’s a fixed-in-place supporter–I wonder if this makes a difference?).
Thanks anyway.
In Chapter 18, I found that instead of writing an initial appearance, I can write a rule like so–
Rule for writing a paragraph about the bust:
say "A memorial bust is on a pedestal in the middle of the room. He is now wearing his favorite [list of things which are on the bust]."
I can probably amend that for when the player removes the spectacles(?). Anyway, by mentioning both objects, the rule prevents the program from making further mention of the article being worn. Exactly what I was looking for.
Sorry that was confusing. Yes, an initial appearance overrides Inform’s own manufactured description, you do need to account for changes in it though.
This may not apply, but just remember that if the player can and does pick up the item, the initial appearance doesn’t show up again unless you work around it. You’ll get the “You can see a marble bust here (on which are the sunglasses of peril).”