Chapter 16: Understanding
16.15. Understanding things by their properties

Items are ordinarily understood only by their original given names. For instance, if we have:

In the Herb Garden is a china pot.

then the player could refer to this as "pot", "china pot" or "china". We can embellish this by adding extra forms:

Understand "chinese pot" or "chinese vase" as the china pot.

But suppose the pot changes its nature in the course of play? If we have:

The china pot can be unbroken or broken. The china pot is unbroken.

After dropping the china pot:
    say "Crack!";
    now the china pot is broken;
    now the printed name of the pot is "broken pot".

So now the player would reasonably expect to call it "broken pot", a wording which would have been rejected before. We can achieve this by writing:

Understand the unbroken property as describing the pot.

which allows "unbroken" or "broken" to describe the pot, depending on its state. And, since the player might well use a different adjective but with the same idea in mind, we can even add:

Understand "shattered" or "cracked" or "smashed" as broken. Understand "pristine" as unbroken.

This is something of a toy example, but the feature looks rather more useful when there are more pots than just one:

"Terracotta"

A flowerpot is a kind of thing. A flowerpot can be unbroken or broken. Understand the broken property as describing a flowerpot.

After dropping an unbroken flowerpot:
    say "Crack!";
    now the noun is broken;
    now the printed name of the noun is "broken flowerpot";
    now the printed plural name of the noun is "broken flowerpots".

The Herb Garden is a room. In the Herb Garden are ten unbroken flowerpots.

We then have the dialogue:

Herb Garden
You can see ten flowerpots here.
>get two flowerpots
flowerpot: Taken.
flowerpot: Taken.
>drop all
flowerpot: Crack!
flowerpot: Crack!
>look
Herb Garden
You can see two broken flowerpots and eight flowerpots here.
>get an unbroken flowerpot
Taken.

and so on and so forth.

There are in fact two slightly different forms of this kind of sentence:

Understand the broken property as describing a flowerpot.
Understand the broken property as referring to a flowerpot.

The only difference is that in the "describing" case, the property's name alone can mean the thing in question - so "take unbroken" will work; whereas, in the "referring to", the property's name can only be used as an adjective preceding the name of thing itself - so "take unbroken flowerpot" will work but "take unbroken" will not.


300
* Example  Hymenaeus
Understanding "flaming torch" and "extinguished torch" to refer to torches when lit and unlit.

RB
301
* Example  Aspect
Understanding aspect ratios (a unit) in the names of televisions.

RB
302
** Example  Channel 1
Understanding channels (a number) in the names of televisions.

RB
303
** Example  Peers
The peers of the English realm come in six flavours - Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, Duke and Prince - and must always be addressed properly. While a peerage is for life, it may at the royal pleasure be promoted.

RB
304
** Example  Terracottissima
The flowerpots once again, but this time arranged so that after the first breakage all undamaged pots are said to be "unbroken", to distinguish them from the others.

RB
305
*** Example  Channel 2
Understanding channels (a number) in the names of televisions, with more sophisticated parsing of the change channel action.

RB
306
*** Example  Tilt 1
A deck of cards with fully implemented individual cards, which can be separately drawn and discarded, and referred to by name.

RB
307
*** Example  Terracottissima Maxima
Flowerpots with textual names that might change during play.

RB

Inform can also understand properties that are "indexed text", a type we will learn more about in the Advanced Text chapter:

"Terracottissima Maxima"

A flowerpot is a kind of thing. A flowerpot has an indexed text called pattern. Understand the pattern property as describing a flowerpot. The printed name of a flowerpot is usually "[pattern] flowerpot". The printed plural name of a flowerpot is usually "[pattern] flowerpots".

The Herb Garden is a room. In the Herb Garden is a flowerpot with pattern "blue willow". In the Herb Garden is a flowerpot with pattern "striped". In the Herb Garden is a flowerpot with pattern "striped".

Test me with "x blue willow / get striped / look".

This may not seem very much different from having the pattern be a kind of value -- except that indexed texts can be reset to equal player input or changed to arbitrary new strings. Further exploration of these possibilities may be found in the chapter on Advanced Text.


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