============================ William Tell: in his prime ============================ .. highlight:: inform .. epigraph:: | |CENTER| *O was an oyster girl, and went about town;* | |CENTER| *P was a parson, and wore a black gown.* .. only:: html .. image:: /images/picO.png :align: left |O|\ur game's action nears its climax in the town's central square. In this chapter we define the square's constituent rooms and deal with Wilhelm's approach to the hat on the pole -- does he salute it, or does he remain proudly defiant? .. _south-side: The south side of the square ============================ The town square, notionally one enormous open space, is represented by three rooms. Here's the south side: .. include:: /config/typethis.rst :: Room south_square "South side of the square" with description "The narrow street to the south has opened onto the town square, and resumes at the far side of this cobbled meeting place. To continue along the street towards your destination -- Johansson's tannery -- you must walk north across the square, in the middle of which you see Gessler's hat set on that loathsome pole. If you go on, there's no way you can avoid passing it. Imperial soldiers jostle rudely through the throng, pushing, kicking and swearing loudly.", n_to mid_square, s_to below_square; Prop "hat on a pole" with name 'hat' 'pole', before [; default: print_ret "You're too far away at the moment."; ], found_in south_square north_square; Prop "Gessler's soldiers" with name 'soldier' 'soldiers' 'guard' 'guards', description "They're uncouth, violent men, not from around here.", before [; FireAt: print_ret "You're outnumbered many times."; Talk: print_ret "Such scum are beneath your contempt."; ], found_in south_square mid_square north_square marketplace, has animate pluralname proper; It's all pretty standard stuff: just a ``Room`` and two ``Prop``\s. The "real" pole object is located in the ``mid_square`` room, which means that players can't EXAMINE it from this room (technically, it's "not in scope"). However, since we're pretending that Wilhelm can see the whole of the square from where he's standing, we need to provide a dummy hat on a pole, :prop:`found_in` both this room and the north side of the square, even if it's "too far away" for a detailed description. .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: Examine; library action pair: before; library property In fact, it's "too far away" for anything. We've replaced the standard :prop:`before` action for the ``Prop`` class (which permits :act:`Examine`, but rejects other actions with "You don't need to worry about...") with one rejecting *all* actions. Since Wilhelm's hatred of the vogt's activities is central to our plot, a message saying "You don't need to worry about the hat" would be unacceptably misleading. .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: FireAt; library action pair: Talk; library action The obnoxious soldiers are also implemented very sketchily; they need to be there, but they don't do much. Their most interesting characteristic is probably that they trap two actions -- :act:`FireAt` and :act:`Talk` -- which are *not* part of the library, but instead new actions that we've defined specially for this game. We'll talk about those actions in :ref:`verbs`, at which time the role of this :prop:`before` property will make more sense. The middle of the square ======================== The activities here are pivotal to the game's plot. Wilhelm has arrived from the south side of the square, and now encounters the pole with the hat on top. He can do three things: #. Return south. That's allowed, but all it does is waste a little time -- there's nothing else to usefully do south of here. #. Salute the pole, and then proceed to the north. That's allowed, though it rather subverts the folk story. #. Attempt to proceed northwards without saluting the pole. Twice, a soldier will prevent this, and issue a verbal warning. On the third attempt, patience runs out, and Wilhelm is hauled off to perform his party piece. .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: Go; library action pair: Salute; library action So, there are two actions that we need to look out for: :act:`Salute` (trapped by the pole), and :act:`Go` (which can be trapped by the room itself). :act:`Go` is a standard library action. :act:`Salute` is one that we've devised; let's deal with it first. Here's a first cut of the room:: Room mid_square "Middle of the square" with description "There is less of a crush in the middle of the square; most people prefer to keep as far away as possible from the pole which towers here, topped with that absurd ceremonial hat. A group of soldiers stands nearby, watching everyone who passes.", n_to north_square, s_to south_square; and the pole: .. include:: /config/typethis.rst :: Furniture pole "hat on a pole" mid_square with name 'wooden' 'pole' 'pine' 'hat' 'black' 'red' 'brim' 'feathers', description "The pole, the trunk of a small pine some few inches in diameter, stands about nine or ten feet high. Set carefully on top is Gessler's ludicrous black and red leather hat, with a widely curving brim and a cluster of dyed goose feathers.", has_been_saluted false, before [; FireAt: print_ret "Tempting, but you're not looking for trouble."; Salute: self.has_been_saluted = true; print_ret "You salute the hat on the pole. ^^ ~Why, thank you, sir,~ sneers the soldier."; ], has scenery; The room will need some more work in a minute, but the pole object is complete (note that we've simplified matters slightly by making one object represent both the pole and the hat which it supports). It mentions a property which we've not met before: :prop:`has_been_saluted`. What a remarkable coincidence: the library provides a property with a name that's exactly right for our game; surely not? .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: has_been_saluted; library property No, of course not. :prop:`has_been_saluted` isn't a standard library property; it's one that we've just invented. Notice how easily we did it -- we simply included the line:: has_been_saluted false, in the object definition and voilà, we've added our own home-made property, and initialised it to :const:`false`. To switch the state of the property, we can simply write:: pole.has_been_saluted = true; pole.has_been_saluted = false; or just (within the pole object):: self.has_been_saluted = true; self.has_been_saluted = false; We could also test, if necessary, how the property currently fares:: if (pole.has_been_saluted == true) ... and that is exactly what we'll be doing in a minute to check whether Wilhelm has saluted the pole, and choose between different outcomes. Notice that we use ``==`` (that's two equals signs) to test for "is equal to"; don't confuse this usage with ``=`` (a single equals sign) which assigns a value to a variable. Compare these examples: .. list-table:: :header-rows: 1 :widths: 1 1 * - Correct - Incorrect * - ``score = 10;`` - ``score == 10;`` * - assigns the value 10 to :var:`score` - does nothing; :var:`score` is unchanged * - ``if (score == 10) ...`` - ``if (score = 10) ...`` * - executes the next statement only if the value of :var:`score` is 10 - assigns 10 to :var:`score`, then always executes the next statement -- because ``score = 10`` evaluates to 10, which is treated as :const:`true`, so the test is always :const:`true` Defining a new property variable which, instead of applying to every object in the game (as do the standard library properties), is specific only to a class of objects or even -- as here -- to a single object, is a common and powerful technique. In this game, we need a ``true/false`` variable to show whether Wilhelm has saluted the pole or not: the clearest way is to create one as part of the pole. So, when the pole object traps the Salute action, we do two things: use a ``self.has_been_saluted = true`` statement to record the fact, and then use a ``print_ret`` statement to tell players that the salute was "gratefully" received. .. note:: Creating new property variables like this -- at the drop of a hat, as it were -- is the recommended approach, but it isn't the only possibility. We briefly mention some alternative approaches in :ref:`reading-other-code`. Back to the ``mid_square`` room. We've said that we need to detect Wilhelm trying to leave this room, which we can do by trapping the :act:`Go` action in a :prop:`before` property. Let's sketch the coding we'll need:: before [; Go: if (noun == s_obj) { Wilhelm is trying to move south } if (noun == n_obj) { Wilhelm is trying to move north } ]; .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: Go; library action pair: s_to; library property We can easily trap the :act:`Go` action, but which direction is he moving? Well, it turns out that the interpreter turns a command of GO SOUTH (or just SOUTH) into an action of :act:`Go` applied to an object ``s_obj``. This object is defined by the library; so why isn't it called just "``south``"? Well, because we already have another kind of south, the property :prop:`s_to` used to say what lies in a southerly direction when defining a room. To avoid confusing them, :prop:`s_to` means "south to" and ``s_obj`` means "south when the player types it as the object of a verb". .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: noun; library variable The identity of the object which is the target of the current action is stored in the :var:`noun` variable, so we can write the statement ``if (noun == s_obj)`` to test whether the contents of the :var:`noun` variable are equal to the ID of the ``s_obj`` object -- and, if so, Wilhelm is trying to move south. Another similar statement tests whether he's trying to move north, and that's all that we're interested in; we can let other movements take care of themselves. The words :samp:`{Wilhelm is trying to move south}` aren't part of our game; they're just a temporary reminder that, if we need to execute any statements in this situation, here's the place to put them. Actually, that's the simpler case; it's when :samp:`{Wilhelm is trying to move north}` that the fun starts. We need to behave in one of two ways, depending on whether or not he's saluted the pole. But we *know* when he's done that; the pole's ``has_been_saluted`` property tells us. So we can expand our sketch like this:: before [; Go: if (noun == s_obj) { Wilhelm is trying to move south [1] } if (noun == n_obj) { Wilhelm is trying to move north... if (pole.has_been_saluted == true) { ...and he's saluted the pole [2] } else { ...but he hasn't saluted the pole [3] } } ]; Here we have one ``if`` statement nested inside another. And there's more: the inner ``if`` has an ``else`` clause, meaning that we can execute one statement block when the test ``if (pole.has_been_saluted == true)`` is true, and an alternative block when the test isn't true. Read that again carefully, checking how the braces ``{...}`` pair up; it's quite complex, and you need to understand what's going on. One important point to remember is that, unless you insert braces to change this, an ``else`` clause always pairs with the most recent ``if``. Compare these two examples:: if (condition1) { if (condition2) { here when condition1 is true and condition2 is true } else { here when condition1 is true and condition2 is false } } if (condition1) { if (condition2) { here when condition1 is true and condition2 is true } } else { here when condition1 is false } In the first example, the ``else`` pairs with the most recent :samp:`if ({condition2})`, whereas in the second example the revised positioning of the braces causes the ``else`` to pair with the earlier :samp:`if ({condition1})`. .. note:: We've used indentation as a visual guide to how the ``if`` and ``else`` are related. Be careful, though; the compiler matches an ``else`` to its ``if`` purely on the basis of logical grouping, regardless of how you've laid out the code. Back to the before property. You should be able to see that the cases marked ``[1]``, ``[2]`` and ``[3]`` correspond to the three possible courses of action we listed at the start of this section. Let's write the code for those, one at a time. .. rubric:: Case 1: Returning south First, :samp:`{Wilhelm is trying to move south}`; not very much to this:: warnings_count 0, ! for counting the soldier's warnings before [; Go: if (noun == s_obj) { self.warnings_count = 0; pole.has_been_saluted = false; } if (noun == n_obj) { if (pole.has_been_saluted == true) { moving north...and he's saluted the pole } else { moving north...but he hasn't saluted the pole } } ]; Wilhelm might wander into the middle of the square, take one look at the pole and promptly return south. Or, he might make one or two (but not three) attempts to move north first, and then head south. *Or*, he might be really perverse, salute the pole and only then head south. In all of these cases, we take him back to square one, as though he'd received no soldier's warnings (irrespective of how many he'd actually had) and as though the pole had not been saluted (irrespective of whether it was or not). In effect, we're pretending that the soldier has such a short memory, he'll completely forget Wilhelm if our hero should move away from the pole. .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: has_been_saluted; library property pair: warnings_count; library property To do all this, we've added a new property and two statements. The property is :prop:`warnings_count`, and its value will count how many times Wilhelm has tried to go north without saluting the pole: 0 initially, 1 after his first warning, 2 after his second warning, 3 when the soldier's patience finally runs out. The property :prop:`warnings_count` isn't a standard library property; like the pole's :prop:`has_been_saluted` property, it's one that we've created to meet a specific need. Our first statement is ``self.warnings_count = 0``, which resets the value of the :prop:`warnings_count` property of the current object -- the ``mid_square`` room -- to 0. The second statement is ``pole.has_been_saluted = false``, which signifies that the pole has not be saluted. That's it: the soldier's memory is erased, and Wilhelm's actions are forgotten. .. rubric:: Case 2: Moving north after saluting :samp:`{Wilhelm is moving north...and he's saluted the pole}`; another easy one:: warnings_count 0, ! for counting the soldier's warnings before [; Go: if (noun == s_obj) { self.warnings_count = 0; pole.has_been_saluted = false; } if (noun == n_obj) { if (pole.has_been_saluted == true) { print "^~Be sure to have a nice day.~^"; return false; } else { moving north...but he hasn't saluted the pole } } ]; All that we need do is print a sarcastic goodbye from the soldier, and then ``return false``. You'll remember that doing so tells the interpreter to continue handling the action, which in this case is an attempt to move north. Since this is a permitted connection, Wilhelm thus ends up in the ``north_square`` room, defined shortly. .. rubric:: Case 3: Moving north before saluting So that just leaves the final case: :samp:`{moving north...but he hasn't saluted the pole}`. This one has more to it than the others, because we need the "three strikes and you're out" coding. Let's sketch a little more:: warnings_count 0, ! for counting the soldier's warnings before [; Go: if (noun == s_obj) { self.warnings_count = 0; pole.has_been_saluted = false; } if (noun == n_obj) { if (pole.has_been_saluted == true) { print "^~Be sure to have a nice day.~^"; return false; } else { self.warnings_count = self.warnings_count + 1; switch (self.warnings_count) { 1: First attempt at moving north 2: Second attempt at moving north default: Final attempt at moving north } } } ]; First of all, we need to count how many times he's tried to move north. ``self.warnings_count`` is the variable containing his current tally, so we add 1 to whatever value it contains: ``self.warnings_count = self.warnings_count + 1``. Then, determined by the value of the variable, we must decide what action to take: first attempt, second attempt, or final confrontation. We could have used three separate ``if`` statements:: if (self.warnings_count == 1) { First attempt at moving north } if (self.warnings_count == 2) { Second attempt at moving north } if (self.warnings_count == 3) { Final attempt at moving north } or a couple of nested ``if`` statements:: if (self.warnings_count == 1) { First attempt at moving north } else { if (self.warnings_count == 2) { Second attempt at moving north } else { Final attempt at moving north } } but for a series of tests all involving the same variable, a ``switch`` statement is usually a clearer way of achieving the same effect. The generic syntax for a ``switch`` statement is:: switch (expression) { value1: whatever happens when the expression evaluates to value1 value2: whatever happens when the expression evaluates to value2 ... valueN: whatever happens when the expression evaluates to valueN default: whatever happens when the expression evaluates to something else } This means that, according to the current value of an expression, we can get different outcomes. Remember that the :samp:`{expression}` may be a ``Global`` or local variable, an object's property, one of the variables defined in the library, or any other expression capable of having more than one value. You could write ``switch (x)`` if ``x`` is a defined variable, or even, for instance, ``switch (x+y)`` if both ``x`` and ``y`` are defined variables. Those :samp:`{whatever happens when...}` are collections of statements which implement the desired effect for a particular value of the switched variable. Although a switch statement :samp:`switch ({expression}) { ... }` needs that one pair of braces, it doesn't need braces around each of the individual "cases", no matter how many statements each of them includes. As it happens, case 1 and case 2 contain only a single ``print_ret`` statement each, so we'll move swiftly past them to the third, more interesting, case -- when ``self.warnings_count`` is 3. Again, we could have written this:: switch (self.warnings_count) { 1: First attempt at moving north 2: Second attempt at moving north 3: Final attempt at moving north } but using the word ``default`` -- meaning "any value not already catered for" -- is better design practice; it's less likely to produce misleading results if for some unforeseen reason the value of ``self.warnings_count`` isn't the 1, 2 or 3 you'd anticipated. Here's the remainder of the code (with some of the printed text omitted):: self.warnings_count = self.warnings_count + 1; switch (self.warnings_count) { 1: print_ret "..."; 2: print_ret "..."; default: print "^~OK, "; style underline; print "Herr"; style roman; print " Tell, now you're in real trouble. I asked you ... old lime tree growing in the marketplace.^"; move apple to son; PlayerTo(marketplace); return true; } .. Generated by autoindex .. index:: pair: Go; library action The first part is really just displaying a lot of text, made slightly messier because we're adding emphasis to the word "Herr" by using underlining (which actually comes out as *italic type* on most interpreters). Then, we make sure that Walter has the apple (just in case we didn't give it to him earlier in the game), relocate to the final room using ``PlayerTo(marketplace)``, and finally ``return true`` to tell the interpreter that we've handled this part of the :act:`Go` action ourselves. And so, at long last, here's the complete code for the ``mid_square``, the most complicated object in the whole game: .. include:: /config/typethis.rst :: Room mid_square "Middle of the square" with description "There is less of a crush in the middle of the square; most people prefer to keep as far away as possible from the pole which towers here, topped with that absurd ceremonial hat. A group of soldiers stands nearby, watching everyone who passes.", n_to north_square, s_to south_square, warnings_count 0, ! for counting the soldier's warnings before [; Go: if (noun == s_obj) { self.warnings_count = 0; pole.has_been_saluted = false; } if (noun == n_obj) { if (pole.has_been_saluted == true) { print "^~Be sure to have a nice day.~^"; return false; } ! end of (pole has_been_saluted) else { self.warnings_count = self.warnings_count + 1; switch (self.warnings_count) { 1: print_ret "A soldier bars your way. ^^ ~Oi, you, lofty; forgot yer manners, didn't you? How's about a nice salute for the vogt's hat?~"; 2: print_ret "^~I know you, Tell, yer a troublemaker, ain't you? Well, we don't want no bovver here, so just be a good boy and salute the friggin' hat. Do it now: I ain't gonna ask you again...~"; default: print "^~OK, "; style underline; print "Herr"; style roman; print " Tell, now you're in real trouble. I asked you nice, but you was too proud and too stupid. I think it's time that the vogt had a little word with you.~ ^^ And with that the soldiers seize you and Walter and, while the sergeant hurries off to fetch Gessler, the rest drag you roughly towards the old lime tree growing in the marketplace.^"; move apple to son; PlayerTo(marketplace); return true; } ! end of switch } ! end of (pole has_NOT_been_saluted) } ! end of (noun == n_obj) ]; The north side of the square ============================ The only way to get here is by saluting the pole and then moving north; not very likely, but good game design is about predicting the unpredictable. .. include:: /config/typethis.rst :: Room north_square "North side of the square" with description "A narrow street leads north from the cobbled square. In its centre, a little way south, you catch a last glimpse of the pole and hat.", n_to [; deadflag = 3; print_ret "With Walter at your side, you leave the square by the north street, heading for Johansson's tannery."; ], s_to "You hardly feel like going through all that again."; There's one new feature in this room: the value of the :prop:`n_to` property is a routine, which the interpreter runs when Wilhelm tries to exit the square northwards. All that the routine does is set the value of the library variable :var:`deadflag` to 3, print a confirmation message, and ``return true``, thus ending the action. At this point, the interpreter notices that :var:`deadflag` is no longer zero, and terminates the game. In fact, the interpreter checks :var:`deadflag` at the end of every turn; these are the values that it's expecting to find: * 0 -- this is the normal state; the game continues. * 1 -- the game is over. The interpreter displays "You have died". * 2 -- the game is over. The interpreter displays "You have won". * any other value -- the game is over, but there aren't any appropriate messages built into the library. Instead, the interpreter looks for an :term:`entry point` routine called ``DeathMessage`` -- which we must provide -- where we can define our own tailored "end messages". In this game, we never set :var:`deadflag` to 1, but we do use values of 2 and 3. So we'd better define a ``DeathMessage`` routine to tell players what they've done: .. include:: /config/typethis.rst :: [ DeathMessage; print "You have screwed up a favourite folk story"; ]; Our game has only one customised ending, so the simple ``DeathMessage`` routine we've written is sufficient for our purposes. Were you to conceive multiple endings for a game, you could specify suitable messages by checking for the current value of the :var:`deadflag` variable:: [ DeathMessage; if (deadflag == 3) print "You leave Scarlett O'Hara for good"; if (deadflag == 4) print "You crush Scarlett with a passionate embrace"; if (deadflag == 5) print "You've managed to divorce Scarlett"; ... ]; Of course, you must assign the appropriate value to :var:`deadflag` at the point when the game arrives at each of those possible endings. We've nearly finished. In the concluding chapter of this game, we'll talk about the fateful shooting of the arrow.