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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

    instead    examining the keyhole   
    instead    examining the mystery man   
    instead    examining the player   
    carry out    examine undescribed containers rule
    carry out    examine undescribed devices rule
    carry out    examine undescribed things rule
    carry out    examine directions rule
    carry out    standard examining rule
    carry out    examine described devices rule
    report        an actor examining  report other people examining rule