Hi Phil

When you have time I think that there is an issue with above in the Charater command tab. In there you have the DOSPEECH2 sub routine the line is "[start]go %directn1%[acts]pattchar%speech%=static#movecharacter [end]". I basicaly nicked it to use in my game to save all the (as you do!) When moving the main player its producing the report "!! INVALID RESPONSE EDITOR ACTION "movecharacter ". Please Quit Game And Correct It!" When deleted the player moves normally without issue so its the "movecharacter" thats doing it.

Gareth

Hi Gareth,

Good to hear from you again and thanks for your 'bug' report. How is your game coming along now? Interesting to see you are using Characters too
Anyways, please tell us more about the status of your current creation and the type of adventure you're making...

I have tested the "Char_Commands_Demo" and looked in the speech entries and it seemed working fine for me.

>smith, go north

There is one thing that might be the source of the problem. As you know TAB is very fussy about the conds and acts being typed correctly and will on occasion throw up such a coding warning - especially if it finds something incorrect or even unwanted between the # (hash tag) command separators... I noticed this - and if you look very carefully in your post where you reproduced the coding entry ; and the error report too; there seem an extra SPACE character at the end of the "movecharacter" action command. I gotta feeling this is cause of it not performing the action as in this instance no extra space may be appended to the command....

Please try it with the errant space removed, resave your game and retry it and let me know if this makes any difference. Thanks.

Phil.

Hi Phil..... Yep, still alive (just about) Im working on a serial game. Its based on some of the recent books Ive had to read. I say "had to" as Im sat here with a smashed up knee and 9 months recovery to look forward to !.

The game I hope will be one of red herrings, secret passages obvious ones and not so. Im just finishing the main structure of the first level in a mansion (thank god for good old creepy mansions) Im hoping it will allow for the player to travel to other countries and problem solve these before they get to the final treasure. A little bit of indiana jones crossed with good old sherlock holmes initatives lol

Ill look at the space in the code - didnt notice that one just the fact that I copied across and suddenly issue. It actually calls the error when I move as the player and not a character. But Ill try it out and see where it goes.

will be back with you soon as .........................

Gareth

9 MONTHS!!! Wow - that's too bad.

Game sounds good and you will have plenty of time to spend on it by the sound of it.

Sorry, I missed/overlooked the bit in your post about the fact you used the command in RESPONSE. Meant to say it is a dedicated routine only for NON PLAYER Character Speech entries (Character Editor Responses) only - and should not be used at all in normal Player Character responses because it works on "speech" variables which don't come into play in normal RESPONSE entries.
So that is probably the reason, Gareth.

If you let me know exactly what you're trying to do with the P.C. (Player Character) maybe I can figure out a workaround or alternative solution that will suffice.

Cheers,
Phil.

HI Phil

I oringinaly tried to speak to a character using [start]ask watts about mansion[acts]cmess%charname1% : etc etc etc[end] Ive taken the reply out to keep the mystery. I placed this in the response and it didnt work...So, I cut and pasted the dospeech and dospeech2 from char commands in to my char command for "Watts". Tried it again and it still didnt work. I took it back out and then put the dospeeches in to the response, just for the hell of it really and it worked. I had the response back. When I then tried to move as the player of course it failed, because as i know now its for char command only.

I suspect that whilst going through all the code I might have cleared out an odd space, checked a spelling or even a hash and it all come together - It seems to be ok at the moment.

From using a Character point of view I want the "people" to be able to return some help responses and play a part in the red herring routes as well. so it will be a case of making replies random using the %r% whilst still keeping the mystery. Its all a learning curve lol and by doing some new processees in this game such as the habitual secret doors etc. There are opportunities to try a puzzle now that gives back no information or solve anything but, in the next levels if used will come in to play. Its big, but its a good way to try out things tha t are new to me yetmight help absorb the player without locking them into a problem which works well in an creators mind and causing a player to "knock off".

Just have to see where it takes me as Ive a thread that runs through the concept, I just need to build the route through.

Gareth

Hi Gareth,

Good. I can breathe a sigh of relief that there is no apparent bug then!!

It can be cool to include some character cooperation or interaction and your idea for RESPONSE entries such as

[start]ask <character> about <person/thing>

to elicit clues or info in order to make progress is good.

That is one way - another is to do it through the Character Responses (speech entries) in the Character Editor where you could perhaps allow types of commands such as

say to jim, tell me about the mansion

gatekeeper, tell me about jim

If you make use of the LONG WORD facility in the vocabulary you can even allow for longer worded inputs to be understood by characters like for instance:

say to knight, how can I kill the dragon

LONG vocabulary verb: /how¯do¯i¯kill/how¯can¯i¯kill/

Example Char Speech Response entry
===================
[start]how¯can¯i¯kill dragon#speech=3#charpresent3[acts]cmessDominic the knight says: "You can only kill the dragon with the magic sword".[end]

I'll just repeat here some of the info regarding LONG¯WORDS

TAB allows you to create more than one Long Noun and Long Verb per Vocabulary word entry.

What is a long noun?

It is a type of noun (ordinary, object or character noun) that can have extra word(s) that are joined to it using a separator symbol making the TAB parser think that it is a single word…
For this separator symbol I`ve chosen: “¯”
which can be obtained by holding down the left ALT key and typing 0,1,7,5 on the numeric keypad then releasing the ALT key to get the ¯ symbol.

Example LONG NOUN KEYWORDS:

/large¯wooden¯crate/

/tiny¯ornate¯earring/

/cracked¯decorated¯china¯pot/

As you can see long nouns are not limited to 2 words but can have more!
In practice though they will mostly consist of 2 or possibly 3 words depending on the textual description for the normal, object or character noun.

Normally any adjectives or words describing objects had to be placed into the Deletions list to enable these words to be understood from the input command(s) by the parser… Now this is no longer mandatory. Very,very handy because the author may want to use some of these words for other objects in the game.

Long noun object keywords will be printed by TAB in the default system messages or for the n1 and n2 variables in various message actions
eg:

“You now have the tiny ornate earring.”
“You drop the gold key.”
“You put the tiny ornate earring into the cracked decorated china pot.”
etc.. etc..

and the long noun keywords will also be printed in the inventory listing or container contents listing too.

A long noun keyword (probably consisting of 2 or 3 words) is still a KEYWORD and must be entered properly in the RESPONSE words conditions as usual in the correct place eg:

[start]press small¯red¯button#room=1#flag3=0[acts]….etc.etc….[end]

SYNONYMS can be Long Nouns as well. I will call these LONG SYNONYMS. eg:

/tiny¯ornate¯earring/ ornate¯tiny¯earring/tiny¯earring/ornate¯ earring/earring/

/book/tattered¯black¯book/ tattered¯book/ black¯book/

/slender¯spruce¯ tree/slender¯ spruce/slender¯ tree/spruce¯ tree/spruce/ tree/

The second example (book) shows you can have long synonyms even for one word KEYWORDS.

There are a couple of important rules regarding long nouns and long synonyms:

1) Long synonyms for Long Nouns must not contain MORE words than that contained in the long noun keyword.

Example Noun and synonyms:

/small¯pocket¯radio/small¯radio/pocket¯radio/radio/ = CORRECT FORMAT

/small¯radio/ small¯pocket¯radio/pocket¯radio/radio/ = INCORRECT FORMAT

/blue¯teacup/ blue¯cup/cup/ = CORRECT FORMAT

/decorated¯pot/ cracked¯decorated¯pot/pot/ = INCORRECT FORMAT

2) In addition to Rule 1 – Long synonyms must be entered in order by placing the synonyms that contain the MOST words first down to the synonyms that contain the LEAST last. (descending order)

Example:
OBJECT NOUN KEYWORD: /small¯pocket¯radio/
SYNONYMS: /pocket¯radio/ small¯radio/radio/

would be entered as:

/small¯pocket¯radio/pocket¯radio/ small¯radio/radio/

If using a single word KEYWORD and require long synonym alternatives then Rule 2 only applies eg:

NOUN: /book/
SYNS: /tattered¯black¯ book/tattered¯ book/black¯ book/

entered as:

/book/tattered¯black¯book/tattered¯book/black¯book/

Because of all of this inputs by the player can be substantially longer but can still be made to be understood by TAB…

Examples:

>examine the small pocket radio then put the tiny ornate earring into the cracked decorated china pot

>put the ornate earring into the large wooden crate then turn on the small radio

ALL the default TAB Response entries will work automatically with these
long noun combinations too – so no extra complicated coding required….

CHARACTER Nouns can be long nouns and have long syns:

/rasputin¯clever¯mad¯monk/rasputin¯ monk/mad¯monk/monk/rasputin/

Since “the” is a deletion word the following input might work:

>give the small tricorn hat to rasputin [the] clever mad monk

Incidentally, you can also have LONG VERBS and have LONG SYNS with them also!

/get/pick¯up/
/remove/take¯off/
/wear/put¯on/
/i/get¯i/inventory/
/carefully¯examine/ carefully¯exam/carefully¯x

catventure.

Thanks phil that added information on the long nouns will be very valuable as it clearly opens up the "intelligence" of the characters and mixed with randamised responses on the same theme can make the game(s) more realistic

Speak soon

Gareth