I’m porting my very small Hugo game “Waiting for The End” to Inform 7, because I want to put it on the web.
In the Hugo version, I have a little ASCII indicator in the right side of the status line. It simply prints “>–” in the prologue section, “->-” in the midgame, and “–>” in the endgame.
Browsing through the Inform 7 documentation, I thought I could achieve this affect like this:
[code]When play begins:
now the right-hand status line is “>–”.
Midgame is a scene. Midgame begins when the player is in the Middle for the first time. When Midgame begins: now the right-hand status line is “->-”.
Endgame is a scene. Endgame begins when the player is in the End for the first time. When Endgame begins: now the right-hand status line is “–>”[/code]
The resulting error message says that Inform was expecting a condition where it found the text strings. Then I tried to put the status line text into a variable, and to change the variable in the scenes:
[code]The status is a text variable. The status is “>–”.
When play begins:
now the right-hand status line is “[status]”.
Midgame is a scene. Midgame begins when the player is in the Middle for the first time. When Midgame begins: now the status is “->-”.
Endgame is a scene. Endgame begins when the player is in the End for the first time. When Endgame begins: now the status is “–>”.[/code]
The same problem occurs, either way.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected my second solution to work, since a variable isn’t a condition. Is there a way to directly access the status line through whatever passes for a “routine” in Inform 7, so I can control the status line with a condition?