Chapter 16: Understanding
16.9. Commands consisting only of nouns

In every example so far, and in almost all practical cases, the first word in a command which results in an action will be something fixed: a verb, in fact. When we write

Understand "photograph [something]" as photographing.

we are saying that the first word of such a command will always be "photograph". Occasionally, though, we would like to understand a noun as a command, perhaps in a situation where the command is obvious. If we say:

Understand "[something]" as examining.

then the command "examine" will be implicit when the player types a bare noun:

A red box and a blue ball are here.
> ball
The blue ball is plaited from many small leather patches.

so that the command "ball" has resulted in the action "examining the blue ball".

This is a feature which should be used sparingly, since it could easily lead to confusion if not carefully explained to the player. By default, it is not used at all.


230
 Example  Misadventure
A going by name command which does respect movement rules, and accepts names of rooms as commands.

231
 Example  Safari Guide
The same functionality, but making the player continue to move until he reaches his destination or a barrier, handling all openable doors on the way.


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