Chapter 8: Vehicles, Animals and Furniture
8.1. Bicycles, Cars and Boats

The vehicle kind in Inform refers to an object which can carry at least one person, but is small enough to fit into a single location:

In the Garden is a vehicle called the motor mower.

We can then apply different rules to a player going somewhere on foot or in the vehicle. Peugeot (a bicycle) is an easy example; No Relation (a car) adds an ignition switch to the vehicle; Straw Boater (a motorboat) gets around areas of lake where travel on foot is not just slower but impossible.

Hover (a sci-fi "hover-bubble") changes the appearance of the landscape when it is seen from inside the vehicle.

* See Ships, Trains and Elevators for larger conveyances


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** Example  Straw Boater
Using text properties that apply only to some things and are not defined for others.

WI
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* Example  No Relation
A car which must be turned on before it can be driven, and can only go to roads.

WI
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* Example  Peugeot
A journey from one room to another that requires the player to be on a vehicle.

WI

Let's say that our protagonist is about to flee . Obviously, he can't make the journey on foot; he needs transportation.

"Peugeot"

Include Rideable Vehicles by Graham Nelson.

The Lot is a room. The ten-speed bike is a rideable vehicle in the Lot.

We make the ten-speed bike a rideable vehicle because we want to say that the player is on it rather than in it. Then our other room:

Cambridge is east of the Lot.

And now we borrow from the Actions chapter to prevent travel without the proper equipment:

Instead of going to Cambridge when the player is not on the ten-speed bike:
    say "It's a long journey to Cambridge: you'll never make it on foot."

After going to Cambridge:
    say "You begin pedalling determinedly.";
    continue the action.

Test me with "e / get on ten-speed bike / e".

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*** Example  Hover
Letting the player see a modified room description when he's viewing the place from inside a vehicle.

WI


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