Is there a word for ‘the allure of mechanical problem solving that causes the artistic component of your game to sputter and stall?’ I’ve just been calling them ‘shiny things.’ And man, I got them in spades.
The latest was the desire to implement a SEARCH FOR capablility ala >search pile of papers for deed Note that >search pile of papers might turn up the deed, or something else of interest. Ideally I’ve messaged things correctly so the player is hinted when there is more to find. IAC, SearchForAction.
Since SearchForAction shares a lot of the grammar of ConsultAboutAction, my first, braindead attempt was along the lines of
dobjFor(ConsultAction)
maybeRemapTo(!ofKind(Consultable), SearchFor, self, IndirectObject)
It didn’t work, in either direction. The former wants to be a standard TIAction, whereas the latter is a library-defined TopicTAction. The error messages seemed to point to that disconnect being the source of my problems: singleIobj cannot be remapped to singleTopic and vice versa. I came up empty on trying to figure out how to support deeply overlapping grammar for the two command types, and instead found this thread: How To Remap Literal Action Into a Topic
That thread led me to this implementation, where ConsultAbout is the Master, that redirects to SearchFor when dobj is NOT a Consultable:
/*
* SearchFor Action, to be able to search for specific stuff
*/
// accepts all Hidden objects as possibly in scope
//
class IobjResolverSearchFor : IobjResolver
objInScope(obj) { return (obj.ofKind(Hidden) || inherited(obj)); }
;
DefineTIAction(SearchFor)
actionAllowsAll = nil
createIobjResolver (issuingActor, targetActor) { // use resolver above
return new IobjResolverSearchFor(self, issuingActor, targetActor);
}
;
VerbRule(SearchFor)
// original syntax deeply intersected Consult About
//('search' | 'dig'| 'li' | ('look' | 'l') ('in' | 'inside' | 'on') ) dobjList 'for' singleIobj
//| ('find' | (('search' | 'dig'| 'look' | 'l') 'for')) singleIobj ('in' | 'inside' | 'on') dobjList : SearchForAction
// reduced, unique-only syntax
('dig' | 'dig' 'in') dobjList 'for' singleIobj
| ('dig' | 'look' | 'l') 'for' singleIobj
('in' | 'inside' | 'on') dobjList : SearchForAction
verbPhrase = 'search/searching (what) (for what)'
askDobjResponseProd = nounList
askIobjResponseProd = forSingleNoun
;
/* Still need to figure out how to change this to more generic..
* below does not work
*
modify VerbRule(ConsultWhatAbout)
verbPhrase = 'search/searching (what) (for what)'
; */
modify Thing
dobjFor(SearchFor) { // results/action() override in 'searchable' instances
preCond = [touchObj]
}
iobjFor(SearchFor) {
preCond = []
verify() {
if (isIn(gActor))
illogical('{You/he} {are} already holding {that iobj/him}. ');
if (canBeSeen) illogical('{It\'s iobj/he\'s} right here! ');
if ((!ofKind(Hidden) && seen) || discovered)
illogical('{You/he} already know{s} where {that iobj/he} is. ');
}
}
cannotBeFoundHereMsg = 'It is unlikely {that iobj/he} could be found here. '
dobjFor(ConsultAbout) {
verify() { } // now everyone can be 'consulted': will remap to search
action() {
// This is the meat of it. Reassemble the original Topic text into a
// SearchFor command, and resubmit it so it will remap to an iobj
//
if (!ofKind(Consultable)) {
local myName = '';
// reassemble the Dobj words that resolved to self
//
foreach(local x in gAction.getDobjWords()) myName += x + ' ';
// tokenize the replacement command and get the rest of line
//
local cmdTokenList =
cmdTokenizer.tokenize('dig <<myName>> for ' + gTopicText);
local nextCommandTokens =
gAction.tokenList.sublist(gAction.lastTokenIndex + 1);
// retry parsing the edited token list - and followon command
throw new RetryCommandTokensException(cmdTokenList + nextCommandTokens);
}
else inherited;
}
}
;
I still need to fix the ConsultWhatAbout prompt, and decide if I can live with
>consult pile of papers about deed
working just fine. But it struck me that the more general case of remapping between Action types could be of interest.
Also curious if maybe I’m missing a better way to manage overlapping grammar verbs.