As will do the solution, which as usual I’d overlooked but was really simple.
[code]The mouth is a thing. The description is “It is a devouring mouth”.
The player carries a mint. The description is “A mint.”
Instead of inserting something (called this_little_bastard_that_wont_work) into the mouth:
say “The mouth devours [the noun]!”;
remove this_little_bastard_that_wont_work from play.
Instead of giving something to the mouth, try inserting the noun into the mouth.[/code]
I hate it. The mouth won’t accept any offerings 'cause it is not animate. I don’t WANT it animate.
I have tried befores, reports, checks. I’ve tried praying. I’ve even called Graham Nelson and Emily Short and Andrew Plotkin and Steve Meretzki (they were all off-line).
The commands for giving are defined so as to require a person for the second noun:
Understand "give [something preferably held] to [someone]" as giving it to.
Understand "give [someone] [something preferably held]" as giving it to (with nouns reversed).
Define a couple of new commands for giving something to something inanimate and your code will work:
Understand "give [something preferably held] to [something]" as giving it to.
Understand "give [something] [something preferably held]" as giving it to (with nouns reversed).
(Quite possibly, you need a look at the Standard Rules to find that out.)
Yeah, I4L. I want it to accept giving it to to inanimate objects. And it was that simple. Inform even has an automated response for when the object is inanimate.
Talking of which… this is funny.
Now the game accepts “offer [etc]”. But I didn’t code Understand “offer something etc”. just the “give” command. That puzzles me.
The grammar of the giving action is set by these lines in the Standard Rules: (You can go find 'em if you look.)
Understand "give [something preferably held] to [someone]" as giving it to.
Understand "give [someone] [something preferably held]" as giving it to (with nouns reversed).
Understand the commands "pay" and "offer" and "feed" as "give".
The third line there sets up the synonyms. It’s in the Understanding chapter of the manual somewhere.
