IntroHints

A helping hand: Offer the player introductory hints about the game

Problem

It can useful to tell new or returning players what the background for the game is: Where the game is set, for example, or who the player character is. While this might be obvious with EXAMINE ME, you might want to elaborate some more.

It's nice to offer some initial hints to guide them in the right direction.

Solution

Add a few game hints with permanently open goals so the hints on the backstory are always available:

TopHintMenu 'Hints';

+ HintMenu 'The Basics';

++ Goal 'Where am I?'
    ['You are in the TADS Cookbook kitchen.']
    openWhen = true
;

++ Goal 'Who am I?'
    ['You are the AFGNCAAP: the ageless, faceless, gender-neutral, culturally-ambiguous adventure person.']
    openWhen = true
;

To get to this menu, a player needs to type HINT (and then type it again after the warning). To disable the warning, you can do so at game initialization:

InitObject
    execute() {
        sessionHintStatus.hintWarning = true;
        gameHintStatus.hintWarning = true;
    }
;

To remap HELP to HINT:

DefineIAction(Help)
    execAction() {
        if (gHintManager != nil)
            gHintManager.showHints();
        else
            mainReport(gLibMessages.hintsNotPresent);
    }
;

VerbRule(Help)
    'help'
    : HelpAction
    verbPhrase = 'show/showing help'
;

Author: BrettWitty

Source