HI Everyone!

Ive looked through most of the historical entries here but I can't see anything to meet my problem. By the way, Ive just joined after many a long year away in the wilderness, previously I was a CAT adventure creator - but very low level.

Ok - The issue

I have a building which has Gas lighting in each room. The gas lightig will eventually serve 2 purposes (1) light - of course and (2) The source of coal gas inhalation which could be fatal to the player. Im planning a number of rooms where the gas will need to be ignited and will there after be swopped for a light source.

In your opinion WHAT is the most efficient way of doing this ?
Would it be by creating a flag for each room and moving a (static) LIT GAS LAMP (OBJ_Light Source) to wherever the player is with an appropriately loaded flag
OR
Is ther a better way

Gareth

Hi Gareth,

A big welcome to the TAB forum. Thanks for trying the program out and great news that you are considering making a text adventure using it!

Your idea of moving a static lit gas lamp to a room when the gas has been ignited sounds pretty good... I think it possible you might need to use a few flags (one to represent each room so as to flag whether the room has been lit or not) and a coding entry or two so as to move the static lit gaslamp only to a room in which it has been ignited...

Another way would be to mention the gas lamp using a Script 1 entry text which would be appended to the location description instead of using actual objects for the gaslamp... but even in this case I think you would still need to use flags to record the state of the individual gas lamps.

eg:
Script 1
=====
[start]room=1#flag1=0[acts]cmessAn unlit gas lamp is here.#else#room=1#flag1=1[acts]cmessA lit gas lamp is here.[end]

Similar entries for other rooms.

You would need RESPONSE entries to light the lamp for each room and set the corresponding flag when successful...

You could then set another flag with a value for some sort of 'countdown' effect before the gas became dangerous etc... running in Script 2.

That's all I can think of right now - but I will give some more thought to it. In the meantime don't hesitate to let me me know if you come up with anything suitable or have any further questions etc. either through this forum or the email group. If it is decided that a new action or condition is required I will do my best to implement it for you if it helps to aid you in solving this puzzle.

Best wishes,
catventure (Phil)

Many many thanks Phil

Yep Im delighted to be back in the fold as it were
Your response was not only timely but greatly appreciated. Im, as we speak digging about some of the examples and planning the "lamp" situation.

The code was of great help - plus the idea of the timer for getting the lamp lit!or be gassed - It had crossed my mind of how I can give the player a shot of adrenalin !

Ill certainly put that in....

many thanks again
Gareth