| 8.1. Bicycles, Cars and Boats |
The vehicle kind in Inform refers to an object which can carry at least one person, but is small enough to fit into a single location:
In the Garden is a vehicle called the motor mower.
We can then apply different rules to a player going somewhere on foot or in the vehicle. Peugeot (a bicycle) is an easy example; No Relation (a car) adds an ignition switch to the vehicle; Straw Boater (a motorboat) gets around areas of lake where travel on foot is not just slower but impossible.
Hover (a sci-fi "hover-bubble") changes the appearance of the landscape when it is seen from inside the vehicle.
See Ships, Trains and Elevators for larger conveyances
|  Example Straw Boater Using text properties that apply only to some things and are not defined for others. | |
| Example No Relation A car which must be turned on before it can be driven, and can only go to roads. | |
| Example Peugeot A journey from one room to another that requires the player to be on a vehicle. | |
Let's say that our protagonist is about to flee . Obviously, he can't make the journey on foot; he needs transportation.
"Peugeot"
Include Rideable Vehicles by Graham Nelson.
The Lot is a room. The ten-speed bike is a rideable vehicle in the Lot.
We make the ten-speed bike a rideable vehicle because we want to say that the player is on it rather than in it. Then our other room:
Cambridge is east of the Lot.
And now we borrow from the Actions chapter to prevent travel without the proper equipment:
Instead of going to Cambridge when the player is not on the ten-speed bike:
say "It's a long journey to Cambridge: you'll never make it on foot."
After going to Cambridge:
say "You begin pedalling determinedly.";
continue the action.
Test me with "e / get on ten-speed bike / e".
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