Disabling Movement

[Kayoz1984]

I have a player.move attribute with an integer. I want to use this attribute for the player to move in between rooms, reducing the int. by 1 with each turn. When the int. reaches zero, I want to prompt the player to rest, replenishing the attibute with a new random number.

I have all the code worked out so far, but I'm having difficulty with disabling my players ability to move between rooms when the player.move counter reaches zero. What would be a solution that would help me to achieve this in Quest?

[angelwedge]

EDIT: There's now a better way. See my reply below.

I can see a few ways to do this. If you just want to disable the go command (so that interacting with NPCs or similar can still move the player), I'll suggest a two options:

1. Create a new command with the same pattern as go, and put it in the room with the player. This command will be used in preference to the standard one, so you can make this extra command just display a message telling the player they need to rest. Using the default English language file, the pattern should be go to (?<exit>.*)$|^go (?<exit>.*)$|^(?<exit>north|east|south|west|northeast|northwest|southeast|southwest|in|out|up|down|n|e|s|w|ne|nw|se|sw|o|u|d)$.

You can disable movement when the move counter hits zero by doing MoveObjectHere (fake_go), and let them move again by doing AddToInventory (fake_go). (Commands in the current room override global ones; commands in the player's inventory have no effect).

2. Modify the existing go command, putting an if statement around it.
   If you're using the web editor you can't easily change the core commands; but you could create a new command called fake_go or something, with the pattern (regular expression) go to (?<exit>.*)$|^go (?<exit>.*)$|^(?<exit>north|east|south|west|northeast|northwest|southeast|southwest|in|out|up|down|n|e|s|w|ne|nw|se|sw|o|u|d)$, and give it a script like:

if (player.move > 0) {
  do (go, "script", QuickParams ("exit", exit))
  player.move = player.move - 1
}
else {
  msg ("You're too tired to move")
}

This just calls the built-in go command after checking the attribute.

[Xlithan]

I've had a play around but it's been a long time since I've used ASL. I thought perhaps you could do something with this?

<beforeenter type="script"> if (player.stamina = 0) { msg ("You are out of stamina and must rest.") canmove = false } else { canmove = true } </beforeenter>

The script runs before entering a room. You can create a custom function for canmove, and use verbs for adding the directions.

[angelwedge]

If you did something like that, you would need to have it on every room. It makes more sense to put it on the player's changedparent script, which runs when they move anyway; or modify the go command.

However, it looks like there is in fact a core way to do this, which I think was added after the last time I had a detailed look at the go command.

[Xlithan]

That is indeed one of the issues I found using this method. I still couldn't get it work the way I wanted it to either way lol.

[Xlithan]

There really should be a simpler way of doing this. Having a built-in canmove would be ideal.

[angelwedge]

Before moving the player, the go command runs a function called TestExitGlobal, which tests if the player is able to move.

If you're on the web editor, you can't edit existing functions. So instead, you should set player.notallowedtoexit to a string you want to be displayed instead of moving them. You should set this when the player becomes unable to move (when they use the last point from the movement attribute), and be set back to null to let the player move again. The main problem with this is that if there are two different things that can stop the player moving, it becomes difficult to ensure they don't interfere with each other.

If you are using the desktop editor, you should be able to change this function. It takes one parameter, the exit the player is trying to go through, and returns true if they are allowed to go through it.
So you could modify it like this:

<function name="TestExitGlobal" parameters="exit" type="boolean">
    if (HasString(game.pov, "notallowedtoexit")) {
      msg(game.pov.notallowedtoexit)
      return (false)
    }
    else if (game.pov.move > 0) {
      return (true)
    }
    else {
      msg ("You are too tired to move. You should rest first.")
      return (false)
    }
  </function>

(In this case, I named the attribute move like it was in the question

[KVonGit]

No wait... That should work in my test game. Or it should at least print the game.pov.notallowedtoexit string.

      else if (not TestExitGlobal(exit)) {
        // Do nothing, already handled
      }

[KVonGit]

Err... My Quest 5.8 is missing that function.

---

---

Huh... That's not in the desktop version of Quest 5.8.

  <command name="go" pattern="[go]" unresolved="[UnresolvedLocation]">
    if (exit.visible) {
      if (exit.locked) {
        msg (exit.lockmessage)
      }
      else if (exit.runscript) {
        if (HasScript(exit, "script")) {
          do (exit, "script")
        }
      }
      else if (exit.lookonly) {
         msg ("[UnresolvedLocation]")
      } 
      else {
        if (HasString(exit, "message")) {
          if (not exit.message = "") {
            if (game.clearscreenonroomenter) {
              game.currentexitmessage = exit.message
            }
            else {
              msg(exit.message)
            }
          }
        }
        game.pov.parent = exit.to
      }   
    } 
    else {   
      msg ("[UnresolvedLocation]")
    }
  </command>

---

But it is in the online version. When I create this same test game in the web editor, it works.

[KVonGit]

WebEditor: <!--Saved by Quest 5.8.9010.29474-->

Desktop: <!--Saved by Quest 5.8.6836.13983-->

[KVonGit]

Here's a library with Angel's modified TestExitGlobal from this post, which also includes the go command needed to work with this:

GoPatch-Kayoz1984Mod.zip

---

I also made a library/patch for general use, using the TestExitGlobal function and go command from the WebEditor app:

#1292

[Kayoz1984]

Works like a charm! Thank you!

[KVonGit]

All thanks to @angelwedge! 😁 (I didn't even know that code was in Quest, haha.)

---

EDIT

Your question also uncovered an inconsistency. This will help out all the desktop people who want to use this in Quest 5.8. 👍 👍