Giving Commands to TAF - User Commands
March 4, 2022•903 words
Game play is achieved by entering commands. These tell TAF what you're trying to do. If the command makes sense for the situation you're in, TAF will carry out that command in the game, and tell you the results of your actions.
These are the built in user commands. Games authors can add their own commands, and as many of them as they need, when they write their games.
Commands can be entered in full, or the abbreviation for each command can be used.
| Command | Abbreviation | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| north | n | Moves you to the destination immediately to the north of your current location. |
| south | s | Moves you to the destination immediately to the south of your current location. |
| east | e | Moves you to the destination immediately to the east of your current location. |
| west | w | Moves you to the destination immediately to the west of your current location. |
| northeast | ne | Moves you to the destination immediately to the northeast of your current location. |
| northwest | nw | Moves you to the destination immediately to the northwest of your current location. |
| southeast | se | Moves you to the destination immediately to the southeast of your current location. |
| southwest | sw | Moves you to the destination immediately to the southwest of your current location. |
| up | u | Moves you to the destination immediately up from your current location. This is the command you'd use to climb a ladder, ascend stairs, or climb a rope. |
| down | d | Moves you to the destination immediately down from your current location. This is the command you'd use to descend a ladder or a set of stairs, or go down a slide or a fireman's pole. |
| about | ?? | Displays the TAF About box. |
| directions | dir | Displays a list of the valid directions of travel from the current location. This is displayed automatically when you arrive in a location, but it can quickly scroll off the screen if you examine a lot of things or solve a couple of problems in that location. |
| peek | pk | Displays a list of the valid directions of travel from the current location, together with the names of the locations you'll arrive at, if you travel in each of the directions. |
| where | wh | Gives a description of the current location. This is the same description you get when you first arrive at a location. You also get the list of valid directions, too. See the zap command, below. |
| carrying | ca | Lists the items that you've picked up on your travels and are currently carrying, or wearing if they're items of clothing. |
| examine | ex | The examine command gives a detailed description of a single item. Whether a detailed description exists for an item or not is entirely down to the game author of course. Detailed descriptions may be available for the current location, objects, problems, or set dressings. |
| describe | dx | Exactly the same as examine. |
| show | sh | Displays an image of an item. Images can be displayed for objects, problems, or set dressings.. That is, if they've been configured within the game by the game author. And that's going be doubtful, because I don't like this functionality! |
| commands | co | Displays a list of the user commands available to the player. This list is the combination of the TAF built-in commands, plus any command words that have been added to TAF vocabulary by the game author. |
| vocab | voc | Displays a list of the command words that have been added to the TAF vocabulary by the game author, in the current game. |
| quick | ? | Displays a quick one-line description of the built-in TAF user command or system command. Note that you can't get a definition of the command words that have been added to TAF vocabulary by the game author. |
| cls | cls | Clears the TAF Main window. |
| zap | z | Like using the cls command immediately followed by the where command. This command is useful as the very first command to use in a game. It'll clear the scene-setting preamble off the screen and to reveal the details of the starting location all by typing z and hitting Enter. |
| take | ta | Takes an object from the current location. |
| drop | dr | Drops an object in the current location. |
| carrying | ca | Lists the items that you've picked up on your travels and are currently carrying, or wearing if they're items of clothing. |
| commands | co | Displays a list of the user commands available to the player. This list is the combination of the TAF built-in commands, plus any command words that have been added to TAF vocabulary by the game author. |
| vocab | voc | Displays a list of the command words that have been added to the TAF vocabulary by the game author, in the current game. |