![]() | Chapter 11: Out Of World Actions and Effects | ![]() ![]() |
11.4. Scoring |
Not every work of IF allots a numerical score to the player: for some authors, this emphasises the idea of a game rather than a narrative. The simple sentence
Use no scoring.
abolishes the concept. Otherwise, Inform will provide built-in support for a single number measuring progress ("score"), and will expect to measure this against a maximum possible ("maximum score", which can either be set by hand or worked out automatically from a table of ranks).
An especially insidious style of bug allows the player to type the same sequence of commands over and over, earning score endlessly for the same insight, and to avoid this it is usually safest to write source like:
After taking the Picasso miniature for the first time: award 10 points; say "As they say in Montmartre: dude!"
If there are many "treasure" items like this, it is best to be systematic, as in No Place Like Home. Bosch takes another approach to the same idea, by creating a table of point-earning actions that the player will be rewarded for doing; the FULL SCORE command will then play these back.
A single number does not really sum up a life, or even an afternoon, and Goat-Cheese and Sage Chicken and Panache offer more detailed citations. Works that are more story than game may prefer to offer a plot summary of the player's experience to date in lieu of more conventional scoring.
Finally, Rubies provides a scoreboard that keeps track of the ten highest-scoring players from one playthrough to the next.
| ![]() ![]() ![]() Recording a whole table of scores for specific treasures. |
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| ![]() Creating a list of actions that will earn the player points, and using this both to change the score and to give FULL SCORE reports. |
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| ![]() ![]() ![]() Implementing a FULL SCORE command which lists more information than the regular SCORE command, adding times and rankings, as an extension of the example given in this chapter. |
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| ![]() ![]() ![]() Replacing the score with a plot summary that records the events of the plot, scene by scene. |
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| ![]() ![]() ![]() A scoreboard that keeps track of the ten highest-scoring players from one playthrough to the next, adding the player's name if he has done well enough. |
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