This message was edited by Legacy at 2003-3-31 12:16:14

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Hi, i'm trying to develope a text based quest game, and i just wrote the prototype in which i tried to execute th engine i had in mind.
i haven't develope a vocabulary based system yet, for now i'm just trying a few existing commands, "look at" "open door" "pick up key" etc.
my idea was to make a repeat loop for this (the loop ends once the player walks out of the room) that reads a string and then uses case like this

case string of
'look': 'blah blah';
'open door': 'blah blah';

i was astonished to find out that case doesn't support strings!
maybe that's obvious but i'm relatively new to this
baisicly what i wanted to know is since i don't feel like writing a thousand IF's is there another convenient methude like the CASE one?
also do you know of any old games, text quests in particular that were programmed with pascal that i can get my hands on their source code?

thanks.

: This message was edited by Legacy at 2003-3-31 12:16:14

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: Hi, i'm trying to develope a text based quest game, and i just wrote the prototype in which i tried to execute th engine i had in mind.
: i haven't develope a vocabulary based system yet, for now i'm just trying a few existing commands, "look at" "open door" "pick up key" etc.
: my idea was to make a repeat loop for this (the loop ends once the player walks out of the room) that reads a string and then uses case like this
:
: case string of
: 'look': 'blah blah';
: 'open door': 'blah blah';
:
: i was astonished to find out that case doesn't support strings!
: maybe that's obvious but i'm relatively new to this
: baisicly what i wanted to know is since i don't feel like writing a thousand IF's is there another convenient methude like the CASE one?
: also do you know of any old games, text quests in particular that were programmed with pascal that i can get my hands on their source code?
:
: thanks.
:
:
:
I've written a full-fledged text-adventure engine once (sorry I lost the source). But what I did this:
Create an array of all the vocabulary in your game in the following way.
Each word is not simply a string but is also accompanied by a number(this is easiest if using records). After the user type a command, substitute each word (or word group) for this number. It sounds harder that it is. This will make a command like 'get key' become '5 12'. Then you have a list of integers, which can be used in a case-of. The second advantages of this system is that synonims are very easy to add. For example: 'pick up key' will also become '5 12', because GET and PICK UP are often the same.

I hope you can follow this explanation. There are several small difficulties to solve, like replacing the words for the numbers. Let me hear if you are able to code this.

: : This message was edited by Legacy at 2003-3-31 12:16:14

---

: : Hi, i'm trying to develope a text based quest game, and i just wrote the prototype in which i tried to execute th engine i had in mind.
: : i haven't develope a vocabulary based system yet, for now i'm just trying a few existing commands, "look at" "open door" "pick up key" etc.
: : my idea was to make a repeat loop for this (the loop ends once the player walks out of the room) that reads a string and then uses case like this
: :
: : case string of
: : 'look': 'blah blah';
: : 'open door': 'blah blah';
: :
: : i was astonished to find out that case doesn't support strings!
: : maybe that's obvious but i'm relatively new to this
: : baisicly what i wanted to know is since i don't feel like writing a thousand IF's is there another convenient methude like the CASE one?
: : also do you know of any old games, text quests in particular that were programmed with pascal that i can get my hands on their source code?
: :
: : thanks.
: :
: :
: :
: I've written a full-fledged text-adventure engine once (sorry I lost the source). But what I did this:
: Create an array of all the vocabulary in your game in the following way.
: Each word is not simply a string but is also accompanied by a number(this is easiest if using records). After the user type a command, substitute each word (or word group) for this number. It sounds harder that it is. This will make a command like 'get key' become '5 12'. Then you have a list of integers, which can be used in a case-of. The second advantages of this system is that synonims are very easy to add. For example: 'pick up key' will also become '5 12', because GET and PICK UP are often the same.
:
: I hope you can follow this explanation. There are several small difficulties to solve, like replacing the words for the numbers. Let me hear if you are able to code this.
:
good idea tanks, i think i can write it in code, especially when i'll get to check out records.