Beginner's Guide

Creating Static and Dynamic Objects

You are now ready to start creating static objects for your first game. Static objects are usually considered to be things that cannot move; such as a sun, stars, walls, even some furniture. Static objects can be moved, but we are going to keep it simple for now. The easiest way to make sure you cover everything in your room description is to read it.

The living room is a little smaller than you'd prefer, but you can't really complain. Your sofa sits along the east wall, complimented by a glasstop coffee table. A matching chair sits to one end and faces the television on the other side of the room. The front door is to the south.

The first object mentioned is your sofa. Click on the Object icon (looks like an exploding firecracker), or select Create the Object from the menu. The first thing you are going to do is give the object a prefix. You will want to use one that makes sense. I will use the word the. Make sure you use lower case letters. In the object name field type in the word sofa. Now you will want to give the object an alias. A thesaurus can come in real handy for adding aliases. But I think this one is pretty easy, so in the alias field type in the word couch. You can add as many aliases as you need.

We don't want the player to be able to take the sofa, so we will leave the object set to Static. Now it is time to give the sofa a description. This part can sometimes be hard for some, as they are not sure how to describe things. Some also tend to use very dull descriptions like: An ordinary sofa. Doesn't that sound terrible? I think so too. When it comes to describing furniture, it doesn't have to be a tough job. You can browse the internet or read your local sales advertising in the newspaper. Both are great resources, but you want to make sure that you rewrite the descriptions you may find in your own words. You don't want your descriptions sounding like a sales pitch.

I have chosen the following description for the sofa.

The sofa is a few years old, but still in pretty decent shape. It used to be a cream color, but has since faded and looks a dull gray.

Let's get this sofa put in the right room. On the right you will see a box Object exists in: and a list of options below. We don't want the object to be in all rooms, no rooms, or in the Front Yard, and it certainly isn't part of a character, so select Living Room.

We are now ready to give the sofa some attributes, so select Attributes from the tab. You will see a new list of options. If you wanted, you could make the sofa a container - perhaps to hide something in later on. For now we are going to keep it fairly simple. Select the boxes for Object has a surface (ie. you can put things on), The player is allowed to sit/stand on object, and also check the box The player can lie on object. Now select Add Object.

This would be a good time to save your game. So select File then Save or select the Disk Icon from the toolbar. Save the game as My First Game. Be sure you save it in a place that you will remember where it is. Now that you have successfully saved your game, how about taking it for a test run. Click on the Runner Icon on the toolbar or press F5. You can also run your game by going to the Adventures menu and selecting Run Adventure.

No need to panic when the runner starts and you don't see anything. We haven't added an introduction yet. For now type in l or look, and you should see the room description. Since we have only added one object, the sofa, try examining it by typing x sofa, or examine sofa. You could also type in examine the sofa, or examine couch. Play around with the different combinations and you'll get an idea of how things work. Try other commands like sit, stand, lie on the sofa. Congratulations! You have made your first object.

Now create the chair and table. Do make sure that you make the table and chair a surface, and also add the attribute to allow the chair to be sat in. Both objects should be Static and located in the Living Room.

Everyone needs to know how to create doors, so create a static object named door. Give the door a description and make it located in the Living Room and the Front Yard. This will make it visible and operable in both locations. Now go to the Attributes tab. Check the box that says It can be opened and closed, then select it starts off Closed. Now you have a door, but we still need to set the directions in the room so that you cannot go to one location without opening the door first.

So save the door. Open the Living Room and click on the directions tab. Where it has Move south to Front Yard, move to the right and you will see the option only if Task with an arrow by it. Click on that arrow and a window will drop down with the word Object, select it. Then select the door that you just created from the next dropdown list. And finally in the end window, select Open. Update the room and you will be prompted to copy the directional restriction. Select Yes, and you are finished.

Now we are going to create the key so we can lock/unlock the door. Select the object icon once more and give the object the prefix the (you could also use a small, the small, a bronze, a silver, or whatever suits your needs. Name the object key. You want to make sure that you check the Dynamic Object box. Now we need to decide where the key is going to be located initially. So click the arrow next to the Initial Location box and select Held by someone. In the box below, select Player. Give the key a description. When you run the game, the key should be held by the player. You can type I or Inventory to check.

To make it so the door can lock, go back and edit the door attributes. Check the box that says is lockable, then select the key you created. Where it has Starts off closed, simply change that to locked. Update the object and you are done.

We are now ready to create the television. Give it a name, make it static, add aliases, and make it located in the Living Room. I used the following description for the television.

It is a foreign model, but you got a good deal.

The reason I gave it such a general description is because we are going to use object states to allow it to be turned on and off. In the next section you will learn how to create a variable and alr that we will use to control the television. So for now, click on the Attributes Tab and check the box Object starts off in state. Make sure you select OFF. You will see a couple of new options available, but we won't be using them this time around. Add the object and save your file.

Forget about the television for now. We need to make another dynamic object. Click on the object icon again to open up the object window. Create an object named the remote, make it dynamic, give it as many aliases as you can think of for a remote control. You will now be able to select the objects initial location. Click on the arrow and select On an Object from the drop down list. Below that you should see that it has selected the object. You can change this by clicking on the arrow of that box. I have chosen to have the remote control be ON the coffee table. Give the remote a description and click Add Object. Now let's get back to that television. Continue to the variables and ALR section.

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