Robin & Orchid — 58 of 88

Section - Last Action

[Keep track of the last action a character performed.]

A person has a stored action called the last action.

The last action of a person is usually the action of waiting.

[[NPCs]

First after someone doing something:

[don't bother with the cat, the only time you can take a photo of it is when it's in the window or waiting for the player]

if the actor is not the cat:

let the act be the current action;

[Remove the actor from the stored action; we don't need to store that information and it messes up the way the action gets printed out. If the actor part is the player, Inform 7 won't mention the actor's name when the action is printed onscreen, which is what we want here.]

change the actor part of the act to the player;

now the last action of the actor is the act;

continue the action.]

[I think this is all handled manually now?]

[the player]

First every turn:

now the last action of the player is the current action.

[If we don't like the default description of an action we can add it as a special case here.]

To decide what indexed text is the textual representation of (act - a stored action):

if the act is searching the nursery window:

decide on "looking through the window";

if the act is photographing the player with the Polaroid:

decide on "taking a photo of yourself";

if action name part of the act is the examining action:

decide on "staring at something";

if the act is floating:

decide on "floating in the air";

if the act is talking vaguely:

decide on "talking about something";

if the act is screaming:

decide on "screaming at you";

if the act is pushing:

decide on "moving [the noun part of the act]";

decide on "[act]".