Chapter 5: The Viewpoint Character
5.4. Background, Memory, and Knowledge

In IF, as in all interactive storytelling, an essential problem is that the player does not begin the game knowing everything that the player character should, and so may implausibly bumble through situations that the player character should be quite comfortable in. If the player character has friends, an unusual job, a home or environment we're not familiar with, a secret past, these will all be a blank to the player.

Some games get around this by making the player character an amnesiac, or positioning him as a newcomer to a strange world in which his disorientation is explicable; but there are stories that cannot be told this way, and so we need other methods of getting the player to know what the player character already does.

Our first opportunity to inform the player about the player character is in the opening text of a game:

When play begins:
    say "The funeral is exactly a month ago now, but Elise's shoes are still on the shoe tree."

We may also want to write descriptions of objects to give extra background information the first time the player encounters them:

A thing can be examined or unexamined. A thing is usually unexamined. After examining something: now the noun is examined; continue the action.

The description of the newspaper is "A rolled-up newspaper[if unexamined], and thus a symbol of your newly-single state: Elise always had it open and the Local Metro section next to your plate by the time you got out of the shower[end if]."

To expand on this, we could give the player a THINK ABOUT or REMEMBER command, with which he can call up information about people he meets or references he encounters in descriptions, so that he could (for instance) next type REMEMBER ELISE. Merlin demonstrates one way to implement a character with memory; One of Those Mornings puts a twist on this by letting the player FIND things which he knows his character possessed at some time before the game started.

Once the game is under way, we may also want the player character's perspective to change as a result of what he's encountered. It is sometimes reasonable to let the player understand references to characters who are currently off-stage, as in Puncak Jaya; or respond to actions differently depending on what the player has previously done, as in Tense Boxing; or change the way we describe objects in light of new knowledge about them, as in Zero.

* See Looking for more ways to change the description of a room depending on player experience


245
* Example  Merlin
A REMEMBER command which accepts any text and looks up a response in a table of recollections.

WI
267
* Example  One of Those Mornings
A FIND command that allows the player to find a lost object anywhere

WI
284
* Example  Puncak Jaya
When a character is not visible, responding to such commands as EXAMINE PETER and PETER, HELLO with a short note that the person in question is no longer visible.

WI
137
* Example  Tense Boxing
An overview of all the variations of past and present tenses, and how they might be used.

WI
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*** Example  Zero
A box which called "horribly heavy box" after the player has tried to take it the first time.

WI

The names of objects might want to change also:

"Zero"

Weight is a kind of value. The weights are light, manageable, and horribly heavy. Everything has a weight.

A thing is usually manageable.

This does require a rule from Chapter 16, but it's a fairly straightforward one:

Before printing the name of a horribly heavy thing (called weighty object):
    if we have taken the weighty object, say "[weight] ".

The Nearly Empty Living Room is a room. "Nearly everything is out, all of Helen's possessions and most of yours." A man called Mr Zero is in the Nearly Empty Living Room. "Mr Zero, despite being heavily paid to assist in this operation, is giving you a look that clearly conveys his lack of interest in budging even one more item." The description of Mr Zero is "Many muscles, no hair."

The book box is a horribly heavy thing in the Living Room. The clothing box is a manageable thing in the Living Room. A broom, a dustpan, some packing tape, and a discarded newspaper are light things in the Living Room.

After taking a horribly heavy thing:
    say "Taken. (Oof.)"

Test me with "get clothing / look / get book box / look / i / drop book box / look".


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