§3.9. Passers-By, Weather and Astronomical Events

Out of doors, nature is seldom still. Clouds scull by at random, as in Weathering, and provide some variety in what would otherwise be lifelessly static room descriptions. In much the same way, passers-by and other diversions make a city street a constant bustle: see Uptown Girls for this human breeze. A more nagging sense of atmosphere can be experienced in Full Moon.

Orange Cones offers traffic that is present on every road in the story unless a room is marked off with orange cones -- and this is allowed to change during play.

Night and Day and Totality each schedule celestial events to provide a changing display in the sky above, and this time running like clockwork rather than at random.

* See Scene Changes for meteors and a moon-rise


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arrow-left.pngBack to §3.8. Sounds
arrow-right.pngOnward to Chapter 4: Time and Plot: §4.1. The Passage Of Time

*ExampleWeathering
The automatic weather station atop Mt. Pisgah shows randomly fluctuating temperature, pressure and cloud cover.

*ExampleFull Moon
Random atmospheric events which last the duration of a scene.

*ExampleNight and Day
Cycling through a sequence of scenes to represent day and night following one another during a game.

**ExampleTotality
To schedule an eclipse of the sun, which involves a number of related events.

***ExampleOrange Cones
Creating a traffic backdrop that appears in all road rooms except the one in which the player has laid down orange cones.

Suppose we have an urban space we want to populate with random passers-by. These should have a range of characteristics and not always be described in the same way; and once the player has noticed one, he should be able to look at her further, until another pedestrian crosses his path.

paste.png "Uptown Girls"

Riverside Drive is a room. "There's a pleasant late-afternoon view of the Hudson, and a snap in the air, and you would rather be here than anywhere."

Instead of going a direction, say "Oh, you know where you're going; no need to deviate from the usual path."

Instead of waiting, say "You stroll along enjoying the November crispness."

It gets a little annoying to have a random event occurring every single turn of play, so let's introduce some randomness to determine how often the message appears:

Every turn when a random chance of 1 in 3 succeeds:
    reset passerby;
    choose a random row in the Table of Atmospheric Events;
    say "[event entry][paragraph break]"

Table of Atmospheric Events
event
"Slowly [a passerby] strolls by, turning to look at you as she passes."
"Some [passerby] nearly bumps into you."
"You dodge to avoid [a passerby]."
"You weave around [a passerby], who has stalled to look into a window."
"There's a ruckus as one of the ubiquitous taxis nearly collides with [a passerby] crossing the street."
"[The passerby] beside you waves to a friend across the street."
"To your left, [a passerby] drops her purse, and swears as she retrieves it."

Hair color is a kind of value. A person has hair color. the hair colors are red-headed, brunette, blonde.

Height is a kind of value. A person has height. The heights are tall, medium-height, short.

Grooming is a kind of value. A person has grooming. The groomings are messy and tidy.

To reset passerby:
    now the hair color of the passerby is a random hair color;
    now the height of the passerby is a random height;
    now the grooming of the passerby is a random grooming.

The passerby is a woman in Riverside Drive. The passerby is scenery. Understand "woman" or "lady" as the passerby. The printed name of the passerby is "[one of]woman[or]lady[purely at random]".

At this point we borrow some techniques from later to describe the woman with a random combination of characteristics, and to let the player refer to her by those traits:

Before printing the name of the passerby:
    if a random chance of 1 in 4 succeeds, say "[height] ";
    if a random chance of 1 in 4 succeeds, say "[grooming] ";
    if a random chance of 1 in 4 succeeds, say "[hair color] ".

Understand the hair color property as describing the passerby. Understand the height property as describing the passerby. Understand the grooming property as describing the passerby.

If we also wanted each of those combinations to mean some more specifically-described woman:

Instead of examining a passerby:
    repeat through Table of Passerby Descriptions:
        if hair entry is the hair color of the passerby and height entry is the height of the passerby and grooming entry is the grooming of the passerby, say "[description entry][paragraph break]".

Table of Passerby Descriptions

hair

height

grooming

description

red-headed

tall

messy

"An older woman with long red hippie-hair poking out of a ponytail in straggles, and bent to hide how tall she is."

red-headed

medium-height

messy

"A shaggy red-head with shingled hair."

red-headed

short

messy

"Almost an urchin, and very young, with ginger hair and a smudged nose and far too many freckles."

red-headed

tall

tidy

"A precise career woman with henna-red hair."

red-headed

medium-height

tidy

"Her hair is red in the way that lollipops and fire trucks are red: not by nature but by art. The rest of her clothing is pretty ordinary, though."

red-headed

short

tidy

"Thin and small in every sense, with chin-length red-hair. Even high heels do not bring her head much above your shoulder."

brunette

tall

messy

"A Juno-esque woman with dark hair, wearing something resembling a tent."

brunette

medium-height

messy

"An unremarkable woman with dark brown hair and the aura of needing a wash."

brunette

short

messy

"There are mustard stains on the t-shirt of this short brown-haired woman. Estimated age ca. 40. Possibly homeless."

brunette

tall

tidy

"A leggy brunette in business attire."

brunette

medium-height

tidy

"Medium-height, brown-haired, generally nondescript."

brunette

short

tidy

"A neat little dark-haired girl."

blonde

tall

messy

"A tall blonde of about thirteen who looks as though she has not yet figured out how to get her wardrobe to catch up with her rate of growth. Her t-shirt and her pants are too short."

blonde

medium-height

messy

"Black leather pants and the wall-o-hair look."

blonde

short

messy

"One of those shocking platinum blonde types, with a tiger-patterned skirt. Reeally trashy."

blonde

tall

tidy

"Elfin and severe, with perfectly straight hair falling to the middle of the back."

blonde

medium-height

tidy

"A rounded, Marilyn-esque blonde."

blonde

short

tidy

"Pin-precise in a blue-and-white striped suit and a boyish haircut."

Test me with "z / z / x passerby / z / z / x passerby".

***ExampleUptown Girls
A stream of random pedestrians who go by the player.

Suppose we have an urban space we want to populate with random passers-by. These should have a range of characteristics and not always be described in the same way; and once the player has noticed one, he should be able to look at her further, until another pedestrian crosses his path.

paste.png "Uptown Girls"

Riverside Drive is a room. "There's a pleasant late-afternoon view of the Hudson, and a snap in the air, and you would rather be here than anywhere."

Instead of going a direction, say "Oh, you know where you're going; no need to deviate from the usual path."

Instead of waiting, say "You stroll along enjoying the November crispness."

It gets a little annoying to have a random event occurring every single turn of play, so let's introduce some randomness to determine how often the message appears:

Every turn when a random chance of 1 in 3 succeeds:
    reset passerby;
    choose a random row in the Table of Atmospheric Events;
    say "[event entry][paragraph break]"

Table of Atmospheric Events
event
"Slowly [a passerby] strolls by, turning to look at you as she passes."
"Some [passerby] nearly bumps into you."
"You dodge to avoid [a passerby]."
"You weave around [a passerby], who has stalled to look into a window."
"There's a ruckus as one of the ubiquitous taxis nearly collides with [a passerby] crossing the street."
"[The passerby] beside you waves to a friend across the street."
"To your left, [a passerby] drops her purse, and swears as she retrieves it."

Hair color is a kind of value. A person has hair color. the hair colors are red-headed, brunette, blonde.

Height is a kind of value. A person has height. The heights are tall, medium-height, short.

Grooming is a kind of value. A person has grooming. The groomings are messy and tidy.

To reset passerby:
    now the hair color of the passerby is a random hair color;
    now the height of the passerby is a random height;
    now the grooming of the passerby is a random grooming.

The passerby is a woman in Riverside Drive. The passerby is scenery. Understand "woman" or "lady" as the passerby. The printed name of the passerby is "[one of]woman[or]lady[purely at random]".

At this point we borrow some techniques from later to describe the woman with a random combination of characteristics, and to let the player refer to her by those traits:

Before printing the name of the passerby:
    if a random chance of 1 in 4 succeeds, say "[height] ";
    if a random chance of 1 in 4 succeeds, say "[grooming] ";
    if a random chance of 1 in 4 succeeds, say "[hair color] ".

Understand the hair color property as describing the passerby. Understand the height property as describing the passerby. Understand the grooming property as describing the passerby.

If we also wanted each of those combinations to mean some more specifically-described woman:

Instead of examining a passerby:
    repeat through Table of Passerby Descriptions:
        if hair entry is the hair color of the passerby and height entry is the height of the passerby and grooming entry is the grooming of the passerby, say "[description entry][paragraph break]".

Table of Passerby Descriptions

hair

height

grooming

description

red-headed

tall

messy

"An older woman with long red hippie-hair poking out of a ponytail in straggles, and bent to hide how tall she is."

red-headed

medium-height

messy

"A shaggy red-head with shingled hair."

red-headed

short

messy

"Almost an urchin, and very young, with ginger hair and a smudged nose and far too many freckles."

red-headed

tall

tidy

"A precise career woman with henna-red hair."

red-headed

medium-height

tidy

"Her hair is red in the way that lollipops and fire trucks are red: not by nature but by art. The rest of her clothing is pretty ordinary, though."

red-headed

short

tidy

"Thin and small in every sense, with chin-length red-hair. Even high heels do not bring her head much above your shoulder."

brunette

tall

messy

"A Juno-esque woman with dark hair, wearing something resembling a tent."

brunette

medium-height

messy

"An unremarkable woman with dark brown hair and the aura of needing a wash."

brunette

short

messy

"There are mustard stains on the t-shirt of this short brown-haired woman. Estimated age ca. 40. Possibly homeless."

brunette

tall

tidy

"A leggy brunette in business attire."

brunette

medium-height

tidy

"Medium-height, brown-haired, generally nondescript."

brunette

short

tidy

"A neat little dark-haired girl."

blonde

tall

messy

"A tall blonde of about thirteen who looks as though she has not yet figured out how to get her wardrobe to catch up with her rate of growth. Her t-shirt and her pants are too short."

blonde

medium-height

messy

"Black leather pants and the wall-o-hair look."

blonde

short

messy

"One of those shocking platinum blonde types, with a tiger-patterned skirt. Reeally trashy."

blonde

tall

tidy

"Elfin and severe, with perfectly straight hair falling to the middle of the back."

blonde

medium-height

tidy

"A rounded, Marilyn-esque blonde."

blonde

short

tidy

"Pin-precise in a blue-and-white striped suit and a boyish haircut."

Test me with "z / z / x passerby / z / z / x passerby".