When I returned to writing adventure games at the my present age of seventy-three, I thought that TADS would be the compiler to use. However, for me it does not not seem to
provide the help required. When I think of adventure games, I think of magic words, battles with mean critters, hunger, thirst, weakness, treasures. caves, wizards and you name it.
In an earlier post, I wrote that I’ve reached the point where I’m beginning to add rooms and various objects that are in these rooms. But, TADS just doesn’t provide the answers for things that I now wish to do and so I return to this forum.
Right now, I want to create a verb that is a magic word. I want this verb, when it’s used to take me to certain particuler rooms. Can someone help me get started with this?
Also, can someone tell me where I can get the source code for ‘Polyadv.gam’? This is the kind of game I have in mind and I would like to get some coding ideas from it; Even though it’s an earlier release of TADS.
Thanks in advance for any help any of you can furnish along these lines.
I found information on how to create a verb but didn’t find any information on how to move myself to a different room using the magic word as a command. I’ll search again.
There are some subtleties involved in moving NPCs (including the player) rather than objects. You can read the article on NPC Travel in TADS 3 for more details.
Are you using Workbench? Because if so, there’s a handy Search field in the upper right corner. I just typed ‘verbs’ in that field, and got a long list of topics in the documentation.
I’m starting to wonder, though … maybe you’d be happier with Inform 7. It’s still computer programming, but the code is perhaps more readable, and the built-in documentation has hundreds of examples that might give you what you need.
It’s worth pondering, anyway. You wouldn’t be the first person who tried T3 and then turned away in frustration. It’s not an easy system to master.