Actions: Detail view  Back to full view A single action in detail. About the action rulebooks

Standard actions concerning the actor's vision
Looking , Examining , Looking under , Searching , Consulting it about 

Examining something (requires light) (past tense examined)

The act of looking closely at something. Note that the noun could be either a direction or a thing, which is why the Standard Rules include the 'examine directions rule' to deal with directions: it simply says 'You see nothing unexpected in that direction.' and stops the action. (If you would like to handle directions differently, list another rule instead of this one in the carry out examining rules.)

For arcane reasons to do with the Inform 6 library underlying what Inform does, these rules test to see 'if the noun goes undescribed by source text' (rather than more simply testing whether the description property of the noun is blank). If so, we search (i.e., look inside) a container, and show the status (switched on or off) of a device, but otherwise give up with a bland response. For traditional reasons, we also show the status of a device as a second paragraph even after any description property has been printed: this is done by the examine described devices rule.

Typed commands leading to this action

"look at [something]"

"examine [something]"

"read [something]"

Rules controlling this action

before    doing anything   

instead of    examining a natural weapon   

carry out    examine undescribed containers rule   name  unlist

carry out    examine undescribed devices rule   name  unlist

carry out    examine undescribed things rule   name  unlist

carry out    examine directions rule   name  unlist

carry out    standard examining rule   name  unlist

carry out    examine described devices rule   name  unlist

report    an actor examining  report other people examining rule   name  unlist