The Most Splendiferous Page of R'nice Modifications
This is not a comprehensive list of R'nice's
code additions to TinyTIM, but
if you're coming off of another game, here are some of the more radical
departures that TinyTIM has made over the years, and which you should be
aware of.
Warning! We think R'nice rules. If you're looking for
academic criticism
of his coding, you're in the way wrong place. If you like reading huge
amounts of praise and accolades, hey! Dig in!
Just some of the funky stuff the most Excellent R'nice has blessed us
with:
TinyTIM was the first to implement true use of all five senses. Whereas before
you could only really
Look
at things, now you can
Taste,
Touch,
Smell,
and
Listen
to things as well.
Multiple-Location Awareness
You can declare exits to be
"Open"
or
"Transparent",
meaning you can
Look
through them and see the other Location, as if the two are near each other.
You can also hear what's going on in the next room. Also, if you
Yell,
your voice can carry through multiple exits and rooms. You can even
"Muffle" and
"Blur" what comes through those exits, so instead of explicit
information, you will only simple notification that movement or sound is
elsewhere. This is all configurable by the programmer/builder, of course.
Besides just carrying stuff, you can also
Wear
and
Hold things (as well as
Remove and
Stow
them, of course). It is possible to have it so people only
see what you're wearing and holding, and not what you're just carrying. Very
realistic-feeling. You can also change all the messages associated with the
wearing and holding, allowing you to imitate containers and surfaces!
The ability to put messages after your entry in the WHO list was started on
TinyTIM, implemented at the suggestion of a user. Think how bland the planet
would be without the ability to write the words "Doing: TinySex" after your
name!
On TinyTIM, once you do something to a Thing, you can say <Command> IT
and TIM will know what you're talking about, most of the time. For instance:
Look Really Interestingly Named Thing. Then, you can
Smell It, Taste It, Touch It. TinyTIM will
know you mean the Really Interestingly Named Thing. Intuitive! Worth an
applause in itself.
Indirect Locks
The
Lock
on a Thing can actually be set to "My Lock is whatever That
Thing's Lock is", so that if you change one thing's lock, all the indirect
things locked to it change automatically! R'nice was there first, lightly
warming his hands by the coding fire while others were just packing their
coding backpacks.
Like other MUSH-Style games, TinyTIM lets users build new functions by
combinations of old functions. Here, we were late coming into the pack. But
once we were there, what a splash we made! TinyTIM lets you declare other
Objects to be the sources of User Defined Functions, so if a Function doesn't
match anything, it will check those objects too, making the entire process
transparent! (We call these
Attribute Aliases and
Attribute Functions. These are pretty involved, and you may want to
look them up using our Help system).
Instead of all sorts of message attributes to describe what others see when
you teleport, move around, or attempt custom commands, we instead let you
declare an Exit to become part of an Object or Player on the game, and set all
the messages on that, and in a lot of cases have a
destination that typing that command will send you to. Very
powerful.
TinyTIM's Help Facility
contains many Help Files that explain in explicit,
all-encompassing details how these features work. Many of these things came
completely from the depths of R'nice's mind. Kind of makes you hesitant
about rooting around up there with a flashlight.
Text by Sketch the Art Cow. HTML aid
provided by Empedocles the Ash Ock.
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