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Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 08:01:21 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: Avatar-less IF
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Eytan Zweig wrote:
[...]

>I'm faced with a design question for my IF in progress: I want a section of
>the game to be played without the player having any involvement in what's
>going on. Not as a participant, not as an observer from within, not even as
>an abstract entity. I want the player to have the same role as he or she has
>in most non-IF: an external observer, that doesn't exist in the world in
>question. There will be an event unfolding (more-or-less), and it will be
>interactive in that the player will be able to choose what parts of it to
>observe - but that's it.
>My problem is, what do I do about all the commands that actually require a
>player to exist? INVENTORY, X ME, even NORTH, all require the player to have
>an avatar in the world. Even if I say "you don't have an inventory", I'm
>still introducing a "you". Any idea how I can handle this in a graceful
>manner?
>

I suppose that'll depend on the language, probably heavily.  In Inform,
I know you can give the player object an orders() property/method that
preempts anything other than, for example, the Examine verb with an
observable object as noun.  For lack of a better explanation, the
actor's orders property kind of sits between (and mediates between) the
parser and the verb activity.

A quick glance through Google, though, only shows posts form you
regarding TADS, ALAN, and ADRIFT.  This may not be any more useful than
vague, theoretical advice, then, for which I apologize.

With any luck, though, someone can pull this into a "real" answer for
the language that you're working in.

An obvious alternative (though by no means as elegant, for programmer or
player; but, if that's all you have to work with, that's it) is to kind
of usurp the parser's role. You could have a series of cut-scenes,
chosen from an ugly menu that pops up between said cut-scenes.

I suppose a "quasi-post-modern" approach, wherein you take all the
aforementioned verbs and have them apply to the reader (rather than
anyone in the action) might be viable, as well.  See the Inform game
"Tokyo: Present Day," for a fairly well-done example of such a layered
reality (though with interaction).

