In the Trenches #3:

Room Attributes

by Laurel Stuart
February 8, 2002

Player characters, NPCs, help files, rooms, props, clothing, even parser-coded verbs are all considered objects by StoryBuilders. Each individual object has attributes. Attributes are easily edited variables (bits of information) about the object that you have to determine and then input into the Developmental Interface. Attributes include size, shape, portability and other important information. A wooden table, which is itself an object, might also be considered a detail of the room that hosts it, which is a sort of attribute.

For now, I'm only going to discuss the most basic attributes of Skotos game rooms. Other objects have more sophisticated attributes.

What is a Room?

In its most simple definition, a room is a single, specific location with defined boundaries and at least one exit (which, of course, functions as an entrance into the room and an exit out of the room). Rooms have walls or edges that block passage into and out of the room except via the exit. This exit might have some kind of door and this door may or may not require some kind of key.

Rooms can be broken into two categories: Interior and Exterior rooms. Interior rooms are inside a building. They usually have details such as a floor, ceiling, constructed/natural walls and non-portable furnishings that increase the aesthetics or utility of the room. Exterior rooms are outside of a building. They usually have some kind of ground surface, a view of the sky above, and fauna when appropriate. The walls or edges are abstract from the characters' perspective within the game. From a programming perspective, however, concrete boundaries still exist so that characters must use exits to enter or leave even "open" external rooms such as lawns or meadows.

Basic Attributes For A Room

Names

All objects in a game need at least a primary name: a word or phrase that establishes its unique identity. Rooms are usually named in a way that describes either their purpose or what they contain: bathroom, kitchen, and ocean, are all typical room names. If there are two rooms that share the same application or represent a bigger geographical area divided into smaller components, the room names might also include a descriptive adjective: The big kitchen, The northern ocean, a southeastern hallway. If one is constructing a town or city, it’s a good idea to give each building a unique name and include that within each room name. Hence, you might have the tavern cellar, the apocethary cellar, etc., to differentiate by name the location of each cellar in the town. Additional guidelines for room names will be part of my next article.

Attributes: Size

Shannon discusses the utilitarian and mechanical building styles in his article, Building Blocks: Rooms. For Devils Cay, I use the utilitarian style, like Marrach, allowing rooms to become whatever size they need to be for the players. I try to use broad comparisons (big, small, smaller) to provide a general sense of object proportion rather than specifying exact size in meters whenever it’s appropriate.

Attribute: Exits

All rooms have attributes called exits. Exits perform the same function in all the games: they control access to rooms. Exits can utilize doors. Most doors behave in the same way: they open and close. Some doors have a lock or related security feature. A door's attributes (material component, durability and details) will vary enormously between a medieval castle, a modern caribbean resort and a futuristic space station. Within each game, each door might have some minor variance in attributes. Usually in-game variance will be minimal, however, when compared to the variance found when comparing games and game genres with each other.

Whether or not it includes an actual door, every room will need at least one exit. For technical reasons, these exits should be established along the eight compass headings: North, Northeast (NE), East, Southeast (SE), Southwest (SW), West, and Northwest (NW). It’s confusing to players to create more than one exit per direction for any given room. Large central areas might have multiple exits, up to one in every direction. It’s also possible to create exits such as stairs that allow characters to travel "up" or "down".

Attributes: Notable Elements (Details)

One easy way to design a room is to think of it as a cube with six surfaces (floor, ceiling, north wall, east wall, south wall, and west wall), four corners, and a center. Each of these is probably going to have one or more outstanding features, as well as minor details. When I'm designing a room, I start by writing down one major attribute that characters will see when they look in a general direction. If there are two objects along one wall, I note which is closest to the corner and apply it there instead. This is certainly more simplistic than what rooms really look like of course. I expand upon these notable elements with descriptions of minor details in room views.

Example: Living Room

• Floor: carpet
  
• Ceiling: light fixture
  
• North: window
  
• Northeastern Corner: couch
  
• East: exit to hallway
  
• Southeastern Corner: closet
  
• South: exit to dining room
  
• Southwestern Corner: exit to outside
  
• West: bookshelf
  
• Northeastern Corner: television
  
• Center: chair facing television
  
  

When I write the details, I put them in the order I see them as I pan slowly around the room. Starting in the north and moving my head east, I see first the couch, then the exit to the hallway. Keeping things organized in this manner will help later as I draw maps and write room descriptions and list of props.

Attributes: Room Views

Skotos games offer three or four views. Each involves increasing the description about what rooms look like and what they contain. Writing descriptions is a fundamental part of being a Storybuilder.

Brief: Simply the room's name, which is output for commands such as "Exit".

Glance: A short sentence that describes the room's purpose and what you see when you enter the room. Often, it's the room's name with a definitive article. Example: The northern gardens.

Look: A longer description that highlights the notable elements without going into prolonged description for any of them. It should include the exits.

Examine: A description that provides the best detail about all the notable elements that either exist inside a room or can be seen within line of sight.

A Visual Outline

A visual outline is a way for me to write down all the information I will need to input into the Interface regarding a room in an organized fashion. Since I find writing details harder than writing setting or system information, its especially important for me to utilize an outline to ensure I remember to create everything I need when it comes time to work in the Interface. In my next article, I'll discuss making a Visual Outline as part of the "12 Steps of StoryBuilding" system I've created that has made it much easier for me to create rooms.