if-resources

(by Peer Schaefer, peer@wolldingwacht.de)


hintsms.h: a Magnetic-Scrolls(R)-like hint system for Inform

Anybody out there remembering the good old hints-system in the text-adventures of "Magnetic Scrolls"(R), like The Pawn and The Guild of Thieves? You had to type in silly things like <5x rf mz g0 5b rx oo po> (that are provided in the manual) on the command-prompt, and the program decoded that into a short hint to get you unstuck.

This module provides a very similar hints-system. To encode a hint into a code-sequence you can use the new verb "encode" that is only available if you compile the game with debug-mode on. In the manual/documentation of your game you can provide several code-sequences that you have created in this way.

Example:
You can include the following text in the manual of your game:
"How can I open the small chest in the throne room?
42 17 60 49 26 77 6c e1 e2 f7 88 55 24"

To decode such code-sequence your players can use the new verb "hint".

Example (cont.):
Typing in
>HINT 4217604926776ce1e2f7885524
on the prompt will result in "use a hammer".

What's the point?
The great advantage of such hints-system is that the hints are not included in the game itself; the game only contains a decoder for the hint-code-sequences. That allows you to publish new hints for your games without changing the game itself.

An here are the downloads:

Bug-reports, suggestions, corrections of my bad english (or just congratulations) are welcome! Send to Peer Schaefer, peer@wolldingwacht.de.


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Peer Schaefer's Interactive Fiction Resource Site / This page: the hintsms.h library contribution beta-test / URL: www.wolldingwacht.de/if/hintsms.html / Last update: 17th June 2004