I’m trying to make a game where the player is blind at the beginning. I’ve been working on the rules for actions requiring sight (e.g. looking, examining, etc.), and I plan to eventually turn this into an extension. I’ve already finished the examining action - it’s pretty easy, just change it to writing the “blind description” of the object - but the looking action is SO MUCH MORE annoying.
First, I tried just changing it from writing the “description” to the “blind description” of the room - it couldn’t figure out what the visibility level count was. What? It’s a Carry out looking rule - it should know what the visibility level count is from following the Setting action variables rule(s). I had to do something like this with Examining, but that was one line: “Examine text printed is a truth state that varies.” I have no idea how Inform figures out the visibility level count, though, and it would be an absolute PAIN - both for me and the interpreter - to copy all that code and then change one or two lines.
Next, I tried rewriting the rule for “print the location’s description”, before realizing it wasn’t an activity. So naturally, I looked for it in the Standard Rules, to figure out HOW to rewrite it. What I wasn’t expecting to see was this:
To print the location's description:
(- PrintOrRun(location, description); -).
Agh! Inform 6! I had no idea how to deal with this, so I turned to the Documentation for help on how to write I6. I couldn’t find ANYTHING about PrintOrRun! So, that crossed out a possible solution.
I then gave up and decided to just have the player never come back to the rooms they were blind in, thus just using the “description”. But there’s still a big problem: it says “You can see…” when describing a room, and, well, cough cough the player is BLIND!
I tried following where it goes when it prints the objects in a room, and that led me to the “to describe the locale for” rules, which in turn led me to the printing the locale description of something activity, and oh my lord, that rule is LONG! (The “you-can-also-see” rule, I mean, which is what prints… well… the “You can also see…” part of the room description.) I do NOT want to have to copy-and-paste THAT rule.
I want to change it to say “There is” or “There is also” instead of “You can (also) see”. How can I get it to do that without rewriting the entire rule?