Inform 7 at Play

Inform 7 with illustrative examples of play

Inform 7: All About Things

Your imaginary worlds in Inform 7 are almost inevitably going to have things in them. The real world has things, and people expect them. Let’s not disappoint them.

A place to put things

First let’s make a place to put our things in, because Inform needs a place for our things to be in with us.

"A Place with Things in It" by You
The Place is a room.
The description is "You're in the only place."
[We could say The description of The Place is...
 but Inform knows we mean the last thing we mentioned]
Use the serial comma. [because we're not savages]

Super basic things

Now, let’s put some super basic things in it. Let’s make three things, two balls, one red and one blue, and a hammer. You know, things you’d find in a room.

There is a red ball in The Place.
There is a green ball in The Place.
There is a hammer in The Place.

{Shortcut}: or we can use a shortcut using the keyword “here” to mean the last place we talked about:

There is a hammer here.

Run our program and we have a world we can interact with:

Place
You can see a red ball, a green ball, and a hammer here

>look at the ball
Which do you mean, the red ball or the green ball?

>green
You see nothing special about the green ball

>get hammer
Taken.

>inventory
You are carrying:
a hammer

>look

Place
You’re in the only place.

You can see a red ball and a green ball here.

Things you can look at

Inform prints room descriptions automatically, and then lists the things in the room. It only lists the names of the things, along with their adjectives. It doesn’t know the difference between a ball and a hammer, so it just uses a stock message: “You see nothing special about [the noun].”

Describing things when you look at them

Just like our description of the room, let’s make our red ball a little more interesting.

The description of the red ball is 
"It's spherical, red, and radiates a very spooky energy.".

{shortcut} or, we can use a shorthand for the last thing we mentioned by cutting out the name of the thing:

There is a red ball in The Place.
The description is 
"It's spherical, red, and radiates a very spooky energy.".

Things with lots of names

Let’s say we want a television in our game:

There is a television in The Place.
The description is "It's playing ESPN 8, the Ocho.".

You can see a television here.

>look tv
You can’t see any such thing

Humans know that TV, teevee, telly, and idiot box all mean television, but Inform doesn’t. There’s an easy way to tell it, though:

Understand "TV" as television.
Understand "telly" as television.
Understand "idiot box" as television.

Now:

You can see a television here.

>look tv
It’s playing ESPN 8, the Ocho.

>look telly
It’s playing ESPN 8, the Ocho.

>look idiot box
It’s playing ESPN 8, the Ocho

{shortcut} instead of multiple “understand” statements, we can combine them like this:

Understand "TV" or "telly" or "idiot box" as television.

You can also go even shorter by doing this trick:

Understand "TV/telly/teevee" as television.

There’s another reason we’d want to use this technique. Consider this:

There is a rotted log here.  
It is fixed in place.
The description is "The log is a rich ecosystem of mosses, lichens, and little mushrooms.  It is filled with little knots and woodpecker holes.".
The mosses are a part of the log.
The description is "So mossy.".
The lichens are a part of the log.
The description is "You've seen lichen.".
The little mushrooms are a part of the log.
The description is "This is going to take forever.".
The knots are a part of the log.
The woodpecker holes are a part of the log.

Sometimes it’s great to go into all this detail, but sometimes when you have a whole forest to fill up, and you want your game to respond to “look at the lichens” you can do this:

Understand "moss/mosses/lichen/lichens/mushroom/mushrooms/knot/knots/hole/holes" or "woodpecker holes" as the log.

It’s a nicer effect to have each individual thing described, using parts, but it’s better than nothing to just add an understand statement so the game says this as little as possible when people are trying to look deeper into the descriptions of your game:

You can’t see any such thing

Things with ONLY aliases

@ TODO: Should I do privately-named?

Things with special names (printed and proper)

There are some special cases when naming things that we should get into now, so you’ll know when you need them. So, we’ve already shown that you can add adjectives and clauses to item names like this:

There is a gaudy rainbow statue of Teddy Roosevelt in The Place.
The description is "It sure is ugly.".

Things you can’t take

By default, the player can pick up any objects you create. But sometimes, it doesn’t make sense.

Things you can’t take

There is an anvil bolted into the ground in The Place.  
The description is 
"The anvil is bolted into the ground for real."

>take anvil
Taken

Damn. That’s because objects in Inform can be portable or fixed in place. By default, they’re portable. Let’s put a stop to that.

There is an anvil bolted into the ground in The Place.  
It is fixed in place.  
The description is 
"The anvil is bolted into the ground for real.".

>take anvil
That’s fixed in place.

That’ll show ‘em.

Things that are parts of other things

If we describe things, people are going to want to know more about them. Like this hammer:

There is a hammer in The Place.  
The description is 
"It's an OK hammer but it has a solid gold handle."

>look at handle
You can’t see any such thing

Not what we want. Luckily there’s an easy way to fix it.

There is a hammer in The Place.  
The description is 
"It's an OK hammer but it has a solid gold handle.".  
There is a handle in The Place.  
The description is 
"It's made of solid gold.".

Place
You’re in the only place. There are bushes.

You can see a hammer and a handle here

>take handle
Taken.

Well that’s not right either. The handle is listed separately and we can take it. Here’s how we prevent that in Inform:

There is a hammer in The Place.  
The description is "It definitely has a handle."
The handle is a part of the hammer.

Place
You’re in the only place. There are bushes.

You can see a hammer here.

look hammer
It definitely has a handle.

look handle
You see nothing special about the handle.

take handle
That seems to be a part of the hammer

Perfect. Now it doesn’t list the hammer or let us take it, but it knows the handle exists. Not only that but parts can have parts.

There is a ceramic dragon in The Place.
The description is "The ceramic dragon is wicked.  It has scales, a tail, and legs with feet and the feet have long claws." 
The scales are a part of the dragon.
The legs are a part of the dragon.
The feet are a part of the legs.
The claws are a part of the feet.

Remember, though, most of the time we want to decide how detailed we get. We want to balance where we put our effort. In most cases we can do it with aliases:

There is a ceramic dragon in The Place.
The description is "The ceramic dragon is wicked.  It has scales, a tail, and legs with feet and the feet have long claws." 
Understand "scales/legs/leg/feet/claws" as the dragon.

Someone can’t look at each individual thing this way, but at least the game won’t say they don’t exist.

Things in the background

Let’s add a little bit of background ambience to our otherwise very generic place:

The description is "You're in the only place, and you can see beautiful rolling hills and the fluffiest of clouds."
There are rolling hills in the place.
They are fixed in place.
There are clouds in the place.
They are fixed in place.

Place
You’re in the only place, and you can see beautiful rolling hills and the fluffiest of clouds.

You can see rolling hills and clouds here

That’s pretty good, but since we made the rolling hills and clouds a part of our description, we don’t need them described again. Just like items can be portable or fixed in place, they can also be described or undescribed. Things are described by default.

So let’s try this:

The description is "You're in the only place, and you can see beautiful rolling hills and the fluffiest of clouds."
There are rolling hills in the place.
They are fixed in place.  They are undescribed.
There are clouds in the place.
They are fixed in place.  They are undescribed.

Place
You’re in the only place, and you can see beautiful rolling hills and the fluffiest of clouds.

Much better. Having background things that are in the description is common, so there is a shortcut for fixed in place and undescribed at the same time.

{Shortcut}: Some things can be combined in the same sentence, so we can do this:

There are clouds in The Place.
They are fixed in place and undescribed.

{Shortcut}: For this combination there is an even better shortcut:

There are clouds in The Place.
They are scenery.

Since having background items that are both fixed in place and undescribed is so common, we just call them scenery. You’ll use scenery a lot. So here’s our new, streamlined description:

The description is "You're in the only place, and you can see beautiful rolling hills and the fluffiest of clouds."
There are rolling hills in the place. They are scenery.
The description is "They roll on forever.".
There are clouds in the place. They are scenery.
The description is "You have never seen fluffier.".

@TODO Should I do backdrops?

Things you can do stuff to

We’re making interactive fiction, not just “things you can pick up and look at”, so we want to be able to do stuff to our things! Inform builds in a lot of common helpers to make things act in a more realistic way.

There aren’t many of these built in to Inform. It has wearable things, edible things and things that can be a container.

Things that you can eat

One of the simplest is that things can be edible or inedible and obviously are inedible by default.

There is a yummy fig here.

I love figs!

You can see a yummy fig here.

>eat fig
That’s plainly inedible

Easy to remedy:

There is a yummy fig here.  It is edible.

You can see a yummy fig here.

>eat fig
(first taking the yummy fig)
You eat the yummy fig. Not bad.

>look fig
You can’t see any such thing

Things you can wear

Let’s say we have a shirt.

There is a shirt in The Place.

Naturally someone is going to want to wear it.

You can see a shirt here.

>wear shirt
(first taking the shirt)
You can’t wear that

In Inform, something can be wearable.

There is a shirt in The Place.
It is wearable.

You can see a shirt here.

>wear shirt
(first taking the shirt)
You put on the shirt.

>inventory
You are carrying:
a shirt (being worn)

>take off shirt
You take off the shirt.

>inventory
You are carrying:
a shirt

Things you start out wearing (and holding)

What if you want to have the player wearing things right from the start?

The player wears red pants.

>inventory
You are carrying:
red pants (being worn)

(Notice that we don’t have to say the pants are wearable.)

We can also make the player start out with something that they’re not wearing:

The player carries a toaster.

Things you can put on other things

@TODO: Supporters: on vs. not. Enterable vs. not. p55-56 the GET ON, GET OFF, ENTER, etc. syntax

Things that contain other things

It’s very possible you will want flasks, cages, boxes, bowls, pitchers, drawers, and treasure chests. Inform makes this possible by making an object a container. A container is a special kind of object that can hold unlimited things. (Restricting what it holds requires extra programming.)

There is a deep wooden bowl in The Place. 
There is a small carved monkey figurine in the Place.

You can see a deep wooden bowl and a small carved monkey figurine here.

>put the figurine in the bowl
(first taking the small carved monkey figurine)
That can’t contain things

We can fix that:

There is a deep wooden bowl in The Place. 
It is a container.
There is a small carved monkey figurine in the Place.

Now we get:

You can see a deep wooden bowl (empty) and a small carved monkey figurine here.

put the figurine in the bowl
(first taking the small carved monkey figurine)
You put the small carved monkey figurine into the deep wooden bowl.

>look bowl
In the deep wooden bowl is a small carved monkey figurine

>take the figurine
Taken.

>look bowl
The deep wooden bowl is empty

If we want something to start out inside a container, that’s simple too:

There is a deep wooden bowl in The Place. 
It is a container.
There is a small carved monkey figurine in the bowl.

Now:

You can see a deep wooden bowl (in which is a small carved monkey figurine) here.

Containers that open and close

Lots of things that aren’t containers can open and close (books, gates, tulips, hearts) but in Inform, only containers can open and close (without extra programming).

Containers, however, can can be openable or unopenable. They’re unopenable by default.

There is a jewelry box in The Place.
The description is "It's a super fancy box.".
It is a container.  
It is openable.
There is a necklace in the box.

With that one small sentence, we get this:

You can see a jewelry box (in which is a gentle necklace) here.

>close box
You close the jewelry box.

>look box
It’s a super fancy box.

>open box
You open the jewelry box, revealing a gentle necklace.

>look box
It’s a super fancy box.

In the jewelry box is a gentle necklace

As you can see, openable containers can be open or closed, and if you don’t say they’re closed they start out open. We can have it either way:

There is a jewelry box in The Place.
It is a container.  
It is openable.
It is closed.

{Shortcut}: You can combine all three descriptions:

There is a jewelry box in The Place.
It is a closed openable container.

Containers you can see through

Containers, whether they are openable or unopenable, can be transparent or opaque, and they’re opaque if you don’t say otherwise. There’s really only one situation where transparent containers make a difference:

You can see object inside a closed, transparent container.

There is a hamster ball in The Place.
It is a closed openable transparent container.
There is a plush hamster in the ball.

>look hamster ball
In the hamster ball is a plush hamster

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TO DO: Reminders to myself:

Things that can be switched on or off
Things that make light
On-stage and off-stage