Alan Recipe Book

[tajmone]

Works have begun to replicate the structure of The Inform Recipe Book (that ships with Inform 7) as The Alan Recipe Book inside the folder:

• /recipes/

We'll be using the same organization into chapters and sections as the The Inform Recipe Book, for it provides us with a well established model of presenting the reader with common IF authoring problems — but the actual examples will be created from scratch using pure Alan code.

This approach allows us to focus our energy on creating the actual examples, without having to worry about the topics and organization, and at the same time it can motivate users contributions for the topics to be covered can be seen as challenges which need to be implemented in Alan.

Here is the The Alan Recipe Book TOC (identical to that of the i7 Recipe Book) and the current status of implementation of its chapters and section — links presence indicate that a Ch./Sec. is WIP; the number of examples is indicated within round brackets; checkmarks indicate completion of a section:

• 1. How to Use The Recipe Book
• 2. Adaptive Prose
  • 2.1. Varying What Is Written
  • 2.2. Varying What Is Read
  • 2.3. Using the Player's Input
• 3. Place
  • 3.1. Room Descriptions
  • 3.2. Map
  • 3.3. Position Within Rooms
  • 3.4. Continuous Spaces and the Outdoors
  • 3.5. Doors, Staircases, and Bridges
  • 3.6. Windows
  • 3.7. Lighting
  • 3.8. Sounds
  • 3.9. Passers-By, Weather and Astronomical Events
• 4. Time and Plot
  • 4.1. The Passage of Time
  • 4.2. Scripted Scenes
  • 4.3. Event Scheduling
  • 4.4. Scene Changes
  • 4.5. Flashbacks
  • 4.6. Plot Management
• 5. The Viewpoint Character
  • 5.1. The Human Body
  • 5.2. Traits Determined by the Player
  • 5.3. Characterization
  • 5.4. Background
  • 5.5. Memory and Knowledge
  • 5.6. Viewpoint
• 6. Commands
  • 6.1. Designing New Commands
  • 6.2. Writing New Commands
  • 6.3. Modifying Existing Commands
  • 6.4. Looking
  • 6.5. Examining
  • 6.6. Looking Under and Hiding
  • 6.7. Inventory
  • 6.8. Taking, Dropping, Inserting and Putting
  • 6.9. Going, Pushing Things in Directions
  • 6.10. Entering and Exiting, Sitting and Standing
  • 6.11. Waiting, Sleeping
  • 6.12. Other Built-In Actions
  • 6.13. Magic Words
  • 6.14. Remembering, Converting and Combining Actions
  • 6.15. Actions on Multiple Objects
  • 6.16. Alternate Default Messages
  • 6.17. Clarification and Correction
  • 6.18. Alternatives To Standard Parsing
• 7. Other Characters
  • 7.1. Getting Acquainted
  • 7.2. Liveliness
  • 7.3. Reactive Characters
  • 7.4. Barter and Exchange
  • 7.5. Combat and Death
  • 7.6. Getting Started with Conversation
  • 7.7. Saying Simple Things
  • 7.8. Saying Complicated Things
  • 7.9. The Flow of Conversation
  • 7.10. Character Emotion
  • 7.11. Character Knowledge and Reasoning
  • 7.12. Characters Following a Script
  • 7.13. Traveling Characters
  • 7.14. Obedient Characters
  • 7.15. Goal-Seeking Characters
  • 7.16. Social Groups
• 8. Vehicles, Animals and Furniture
  • 8.1. Bicycles, Cars and Boats
  • 8.2. Ships, Trains and Elevators (1)
  • 8.3. Animals
  • 8.4. Furniture
  • 8.5. Kitchen and Bathroom
• 9. Props: Food, Clothing, Money, Toys, Books, Electronics
  • 9.1. Food
  • 9.2. Bags, Bottles, Boxes and Safes
  • 9.3. Clothing
  • 9.4. Money
  • 9.5. Dice and Playing Cards
  • 9.6. Reading Matter
  • 9.7. Painting and Labeling Devices
  • 9.8. Simple Machines
  • 9.9. Televisions and Radios
  • 9.10. Telephones
  • 9.11. Clocks and Scientific Instruments
  • 9.12. Cameras and Recording Devices
• 10. Physics: Substances, Ropes, Energy and Weight
  • 10.1. Gases
  • 10.2. Liquids
  • 10.3. Dispensers and Supplies of Small Objects
  • 10.4. Glass and Other Damage-Prone Substances
  • 10.5. Volume, Height, Weight
  • 10.6. Ropes
  • 10.7. Electricity and Magnetism
  • 10.8. Fire
  • 10.9. Heat
  • 10.10. Magic (Breaking the Laws of Physics)
  • 10.11. Mathematics (1)
• 11. Out of World Actions and Effects
  • 11.1. Start-Up Features
  • 11.2. Saving and Undoing
  • 11.3. Helping and Hinting
  • 11.4. Scoring
  • 11.5. Settings and Status Checks During Play
  • 11.6. Ending The Story
• 12. Typography, Layout, and Multimedia Effects
  • 12.1. Typography
  • 12.2. The Status Line
  • 12.3. Footnotes
  • 12.4. Timed Input
  • 12.5. Multimedia Effects
• 13. Testing and Publishing