Locations

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Locations

Locations are individual places or rooms that the player can be in.  When playing, you can navigate between the locations using commands such as Go North, Move East, or just S or W.


Locations can be added by clicking on the Location icon on the Home tab of the ribbon, by double-clicking on the map, or by right-clicking in an item list and selecting Add Location or Add New > Location, depending on the list.

Description

Creating a new location brings up a dialog box as follows:



At a very basic level, locations need two things; a Short description and a Long description.


Short descriptions are essentially a label for the location. These will be displayed on the map, and at the bottom of the screen when playing the game, to show which location you are currently at.


If you have lots of rooms with the same Short description, you can distinguish them in Developer with tags, e.g. "Dark Forest <1>", "Dark Forest <2>".  These tags will not show up in Runner.


Under most circumstances, the short description of a room will stay the same throughout the game. However, there may be times when you need this to change during play. To do this, click on the down arrow to the right of the short description.  This will drop down a source text box, where you can add alternative descriptions depending on different circumstances.



The Long description is the text that will be displayed when the player moves into a room, and when they 'look' in that location.  Again, you can add alternative descriptions so the description of the location can change when certain things happen during play.


The Hide Location on Map checkbox allows you to prevent the location appearing on the map.  This can be useful if the location is being used as an introduction or help page, or if the location is part of a maze and displaying on the map would give the puzzle away or just look a mess.