What are some common prepositions used in text adventures when giving commands?
so far i have with, to, as, in, on
anything else?
about, as in ASK and TELL
onto, into,
“Up” and “down”.
Not the directions, the prepositions. Get up, get down, stand up…
Also “through” (look through and climb through, usually windows). And does “over”, “behind” and “under” count?
“For”, as in ASK BOB FOR THE WATCH.
I think they do, but only sometimes.
An OK looking reference: rwc.hunter.cuny.edu/reading-writ … p-def.html
I think those count as adverbial uses. Prepositional uses would have objects, like “up the strand,” “down the hatch,” etc. Those aren’t very common in IF.
To the original question: “from,” as in TAKE ALL FROM TABLE. (Edit: and I assume you meant “at,” not “as”?)
It’s verb-specific, of course. Looking over old code, I see I have
get out/off/up
get out/off of X
get in/into/on/onto X
put X in/inside/into Y
put X on/onto Y
go to/toward/towards X
go out/outside/outward/outwards
throw X at/against/on/onto/in/onto Y
Even some obscure cases like “throw rock down chasm”. (I agree that “down” isn’t grammatically a preposition, but for the purposes of IF parsing it’s the same thing – a fixed word in a grammar line.)
Getting deeper into the weeds of grammar nitpickery, “down” is a preposition there, I think, because it has an object (“chasm”).
I think the IF forms most commonly seen are:
VERB (“wait”)
VERB NOUN (“get lamp”)
VERB NOUN PREPOSITION NOUN (“unlock door with key”)
VERB PREPOSITION NOUN (“look under desk”)
VERB ADVERB NOUN/VERB NOUN ADVERB (“pick up lamp”/“pick lamp up”) – I’m not actually that confident that “up” is an adverb here, but I think if it were a preposition it couldn’t go after the noun in this formulation
VERB NOUN NOUN (“give Terry lamp”) – here the first noun is the indirect object, the second the direct object
VERB ADVERB (“get down,” “walk north,” “examine north”)
ADVERB (“north”)
…and any of the nouns can have adjectives (or other complex parts of the descriptions) involved, as in “open bronze door.” I can’t think of a common situation in which you get an adjective that isn’t part of a noun name (“PAINT WALL RED”?) but that’s probably because, well, I can’t think of it.
Pretty much all the adverbs seem to be directions, some of which (“up,” “down,” “in,” “out”) can also be prepositions.