Three Room Description Styles

As die-hard I7 authors may know, I’ve had available for some time a Room Description Control extension which allows for greater control over how room descriptions are printed — in particular, what we want to leave out, and what order we want to print descriptions in.

Room Description Control requires, though, a kind of front-end extension as well, to form the paragraphs of the description. Until now, there have been two options, neither of which really conforms to the default Inform description.

I have now released a third version, Ordinary Room Description, which tries to stick as close as possible to the way Inform prints descriptions by default, allowing the author to use the special abilities of RDC without giving up other aspects of Inform’s room description printing.

After the break there are examples of output from all three variations: Single Paragraph Description, Ordinary Room Description, and Tailored Room Description.

Here’s the sample code; the only thing that changes about it is the choice of included extension:

Include Tailored Room Description by Emily Short.

The Jurassic Room is a room. “This room is all about the Jurassic Era. “. The white door is a door. “A white door leads north. “. It is north of Jurassic and south of Cretaceous.

A block is a kind of thing. Three blocks are in the Jurassic Room. One block is carried by the player.

A table is in Jurassic Room. It is a supporter.

Including Single Paragraph Description:

Jurassic Room
This room is all about the Jurassic Era. A white door leads north. You also see here three blocks and a table.

>get blocks
block: Taken.
block: Taken.
block: Taken.

>put blocks on table
block: Done.
block: Done.
block: Done.
block: Done.

>look
Jurassic Room
This room is all about the Jurassic Era. A white door leads north. On a table are four blocks.

Including Ordinary Room Description:

Jurassic Room
This room is all about the Jurassic Era.

A white door leads north.

You can also see three blocks and a table here.

>get blocks
block: Taken.
block: Taken.
block: Taken.

>put blocks on table
block: Done.
block: Done.
block: Done.
block: Done.

>look
Jurassic Room
This room is all about the Jurassic Era.

A white door leads north.

You can also see a table (on which are four blocks) here.

>

Including Tailored Room Description:

Jurassic Room
This room is all about the Jurassic Era.

A white door leads north.

You can also see three blocks and a table here.

>get blocks
block: Taken.
block: Taken.
block: Taken.

>put blocks on table
block: Done.
block: Done.
block: Done.
block: Done.

>look
Jurassic Room
This room is all about the Jurassic Era.

A white door leads north.

You can see a table here. On the table are four blocks.

>