Chapter 9: Props: Food, Clothing, Money, Toys, Books, Electronics
9.5. Dice and Playing Cards

Most toys are single things, and no harder to create than any other small items, but games often require a multitude of tokens to be combined, and this can be logistically tricky.

The classic example is a pack of playing cards, where the player must individually control 52 items but without fussy commands or verbose text being printed back. Jokers Wild provides a simple "one card at a time" approach; Tilt 1 is more sophisticated, with 52 independently accessible cards; Tilt 2 can further judge the value of a selection of cards - the ranking of a poker hand.

Drawing cards from a shuffled pack is only one source of randomness. Games of chance also involve items drawn from a bag: Wonka's Revenge provides just such a lottery. More often, dice are thrown. A single die is easy enough:

The die is carried by the player. After dropping the die: say "It lands with [a random number from 1 to 6] uppermost." Understand "roll [something]" as dropping.

Quick, but not very good. Most dice games involve rolling more than one die at a time, to get a more interesting distribution of outcomes: they may also involve special rules applying to doubles, for instance. See Do Pass Go.

* See Typography for on-screen notations for chess and card games


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** Example  Jokers Wild
A deck of cards which can be shuffled and dealt from.

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*** Example  Tilt 1
A deck of cards with fully implemented individual cards, which can be separately drawn and discarded, and referred to by name.

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*** Example  Tilt 2
A deck of cards with fully implemented individual cards; when the player has a full poker hand, the inventory listing describes the resulting hand accordingly.

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* Example  Wonka's Revenge
A lottery drum which redistributes the tickets inside whenever the player spins it.

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"Wonka's Revenge"

The Caribou Lodge is a room. "Hundreds of expectant faces are turned your way from every table." A lottery drum is in the Lodge. "Before you is the lottery drum[if we have spun the drum], ready to disgorge a ticket[otherwise], waiting to be spun[end if]." In the drum are a red ticket, an orange ticket, a yellow ticket, a green ticket, a blue ticket, a purple ticket, and a ticket of pure gold. The drum is closed and openable.

Understand "spin [something]" as spinning.

Spinning is an action with past participle spun, applying to one thing.

Check spinning: if the noun is an open container which contains something, say "[The list of things in the noun] would fly out." instead.

Carry out spinning a container:
    shuffle the contents of the noun.

Report spinning:
    if the noun contains something, say "You rattle [if the noun is transparent][the list of things in the noun][otherwise]the stuff[end if] in [the noun].";
    otherwise say "Nothing results of your shaking [the noun]."

Inform keeps track of the order in which things have been put into a container. If we want to change that order without the player's intervention, we can move the things ourselves.

To shuffle the contents of (basket - a container):
    let moves be the number of things in the basket;
    repeat with counter running from 1 to moves:
        move a random thing in the basket to the basket.

After opening the drum when we have spun the drum for the first time:
    if something (called the pick) is in the drum:
        try searching the drum;
        say "[The pick] it is, then.";
        silently try taking the pick;
        if the pick is the ticket of pure gold, end the story finally;
        otherwise end the story saying "Oh well, better luck next time."

Test me with "open drum / look in drum / close drum / spin drum / open drum".

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* Example  Do Pass Go
A pair of dice which can be rolled, and are described with their current total when not carried, and have individual scores when examined.

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