I have a stack of paperwork as an object in my game. Some testers refer to the object as “it” while others refer to the object as “them.” Is there a way to make the parser recognize the object as either singular or plural?
This doesn’t seem to cut it:
Understand "it" or "them" as the stack of paperwork.
Just as an extra observation, I find I often want the other way as well, which would potentially be called ambiguously singular.
Example: I might have a trees plural object, for which I also want to accept ‘tree’. If the player types X TREE, CLIMB IT, the ‘it’ won’t match because the object’s plural.
So I have a flag called ‘p-switchy’ I can set on objects to make them take both ‘it’ and ‘them’ regardless of whether they are singular or plural or whatever:
lab is a room.
A thing can be p-switchy.
Before doing anything to a p-switchy thing:
pluralswitch the noun;
some trees are in lab. trees are p-switchy.
Understand "tree" as trees.
To pluralswitch (TARGET - a thing): [sets both pronouns 'it' and 'them' to point to the mcguffin]
set pronouns from TARGET; [get current cases]
set pronoun it to TARGET;
set pronoun them to TARGET;
To set pronoun her to (mcguffin - an object): (- (SetPronoun('her',{mcguffin})); -).
To set pronoun him to (mcguffin - an object): (- (SetPronoun('him',{mcguffin})); -).
To set pronoun it to (mcguffin - an object): (- (SetPronoun('it',{mcguffin})); -).
To set pronoun them to (mcguffin - an object): (- (SetPronoun('them',{mcguffin})); -).
Test me with "x tree/climb it/pronouns".
I was not able to get this extension to compile with 6M62.
I did succeed in getting part of the way by:
changing the version number to one compatible with that release
adding a temporary variable to to the phrase “To demonstrate pronouns about (T - some text) calling them (P - some text):” (line 893) to take care of the comma-separated phrase option inside of a text substitution (line 894)
Details
To demonstrate pronouns about (T - some text) calling them (P - some text):
let Special Value be the prior pronouns needed, with player viewpoint; [<- this is only needed for 6M62]
say "Considering [T], as for [those], [they] [have] as [their] pronouns [Special Value]. [Those] [are] able to use such pronouns as [theirs] for [themselves]. [P] [adapt the verb are from third person plural] also for others to use on [them]".
However, there are quite a few i6 inclusions that the 6M62 compiler balked on.
(Note that this extension seems to work just fine in v10.1.2. Thanks @sadiedemight!)