§14.3. More on adapting verbs
If we need an adaptive message with a verb which doesn't belong to Inform's built-in set, all we need do is define it. In the previous chapter we defined verbs by giving them meanings, but in fact that's optional. For example:
To retrofit is a verb.
defines a verb without telling Inform what it means. Inform will throw a Problem message if we try to write text like:
Flash retrofits the meteor beam.
because, after all, it doesn't know what "retrofit" means. But it does still know how to print it, so this works:
"[The actor] [retrofit] the Mecha-Mole."
which might come out as "Dale retrofits the Mecha-Mole", or "Barin's archers retrofitted the Mecha-Mole", and so on.
This is especially neat for writing a single response to an action which works regardless of who the actor was. For example, the Standard Rules include:
say "[The actor] [put] [the noun] on [the second noun]."
And this can make either:
You put the revolver on the table.
General Lee puts the revolver on the table.
![]() | Start of Chapter 14: Adaptive Text and Responses |
![]() | Back to §14.2. Adaptive text |
![]() | Onward to §14.4. Adapting text about the player |
|
Verbs can be related to other things by relations. We've seen that it's possible for a verb to "mean" a relationship. But we can also create a relation between verbs and actions. For instance, we can tell Inform that "take", "get", and "acquire" are all valid ways to describe the action of taking, and then allow it to pick a verb randomly to describe whatever action just occurred.
|
|
Verbs can be related to other things by relations. We've seen that it's possible for a verb to "mean" a relationship. But we can also create a relation between verbs and actions. For instance, we can tell Inform that "take", "get", and "acquire" are all valid ways to describe the action of taking, and then allow it to pick a verb randomly to describe whatever action just occurred.
Verbs can be related to other things by relations. We've seen that it's possible for a verb to "mean" a relationship. But we can also create a relation between verbs and actions. For instance, we can tell Inform that "take", "get", and "acquire" are all valid ways to describe the action of taking, and then allow it to pick a verb randomly to describe whatever action just occurred.
|
|
|