Chapter 9: Props: Food, Clothing, Money, Toys, Books, Electronics
9.11. Clocks and Scientific Instruments

The simplest form of clock is a wrist watch. Here is a choice of analogue or digital:

The player wears a wrist watch. The description of the wrist watch is "It is [the time of day in words]."

The player wears a digital watch. The description of the digital watch is "It is [the time of day]."

Better clocks would allow us also to set the time, and to stop and start them: see Tom's Midnight Garden.

Scientific instruments provide sharper versions of our own senses. In the case of vision, they allow us to see closer up, or further away. It's a convention of IF that people can normally see only the current location, that is, they cannot see from one location into another. The boundary of the current room is like a horizon, even out of doors (though it's true that there are ways to disguise that with a continuous outdoor landscape). Ginger Beer provides a telescope able to see into other rooms.

Witnessed 2 provides a meter which measures how close a ghost is to the player.

* See Continuous Spaces and The Outdoors for more on seeing into adjacent locations

* See Heat for infrared goggles


288
* Example  Tom's Midnight Garden
A clock kind that can be set to any time using "the time understood"; may be turned on and off; and will advance itself only when running. Time on the face is also reported differently depending on whether the clock is analog or digital.

WI

Time can also be understood as a token, and the time parsed will be recorded as "the time understood". So therefore, if we wish for clocks which may be set:

"Tom's Midnight Garden"

A clock is a kind of device. A clock has a time called the current time. A clock can be analog or digital. The current time of a clock is usually 9:01 AM. The description of a clock is "It shows the time to be [if analog]about [the current time to the nearest five minutes in words][otherwise][the current time][end if]."

Understand "set [clock] to [time]" as setting it by time. Setting it by time is an action applying to one thing and one time.

Instead of setting a clock to something:
    say "[The noun] can be set only to a time of day, such as 8:00 AM, or midnight."

Carry out setting a clock by time:
    now the current time of the noun is the time understood.

Report setting a clock by time:
    say "You set [the noun] to [time understood]."

Every turn:
    repeat with item running through switched on clocks:
        now the current time of the item is one minute after the current time of the item.

The Hall is a room. The grandfather clock is a fixed in place analog clock in the Hall. The travel clock is a switched on digital clock in the Hall. When play begins: now the right hand status line is "[time of day]".

Test me with "examine grandfather clock / set it to midnight / switch it on / wait / wait / wait / examine it / set travel clock to 4:12 / examine it".

352
** Example  Ginger Beer
A portable magic telescope which allows the player to view items in another room of his choice.

WI
180
* Example  Witnessed 2
A piece of ghost-hunting equipment that responds depending on whether or not the meter is on and a ghost is visible or touchable from the current location.

WI


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