[vworld-tech] Verb/action handling

[Brian Hook]

Just to elaborate some more, I'm pretty confident that I'm doing is 
the norm for this type of game (including IF games).

Everything in game is derived from a Game Object ('Gob').  Since it's 
Lua, it's not really derived, it's using Lua's wacky metatable system, 
but that's another topic.

Anyway...actions are resolved in three phases: before, during and 
after.  The flow chart now looks like:

get input
normalize input

determine verb,actor,target,other_object

Find "do_verb" for "target".

Call target:do_verb( actor, other_object )

The "do_verb" then checks surrounding objects to see if they want to 
veto:

for all objects
   if o.before_verb( ... ) == false then
      return
   end
end

-- Do the real work here

for all objects
   o.after_verb( ... )

And that's pretty much it.  Lots of subtleties still need to be 
resolved, but as a beginning framework it suffices.  Since I have time 
on my hands, I'll try to hunt down that paper that Bruce was 
recommending.  Happy Bruce? =)

Brian