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Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 15:16:35 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: [CONTENT] Directionless IF
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Joao Mendes wrote:

>Hi, all, :)
>
>I'm a bit troubled by the unfailing compass that IF avatars seem to have,
>wherein they always know exactly what direction north is.
>

Interestingly, I never really thought of directions in IF this way.  I
tend to think of them as an abstraction of "some" coordinate system.
 That is, north is just shorthand for "thataway," and east is shorthand
for "to the right of north."

In some rare cases (in the presence of a compass, for example), these
may overlap.

I think someone in this group once mentioned that he felt very
uncomfortable when the player didn't start on the "south end" of the
map, and I believe these two understandings of direction are intertwined
to some extent.  Consider, for example, your living room.  Where is it?
 It isn't "north. east. east. south. east."  It also isn't "out. left.
ahead. left left," or something. It's kind of "over *that* way," isn't it?

>Does anyone ever write IF where no compass points are used, rather allowing
>motion between rooms by naming room exits? Examples would be something
>like:
>
[...]

>>north
>>
>You do not have a compass with you.
>

I seem to remember an Inform game that did exactly that, up until you
found the compass.  Probably a demonstration.  Let's see...

Ah, here we go:

http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform6/library/contributions/spin.z5

[...]

