Phantasmal Site > Design > Verbs

Verbs for Mobile Actions

For each Mobile Action that is to be executed, there must be an action structure, which encapsulates the basic action, and a set of parameters of that action.

Every action has an actor - that is, it is performed by some mobile. It may have one or more direct objects which can be mobiles or non-sentient objects. For instance, the "take" action will operate on a single object (which may be sentient or not). Movement actions ("move north") will have a direction as an argument. Communication actions will have what to communicate, and possibly who to communicate it to.

A given mobile is permitted to override any verb it is to perform. That is, a "black bear" mobile type may override the movement operation to leave bear footprints, or to growl periodically, or whatever is deemed appropriate.

A mobile can perceive when another mobile near it is about to perform an action. Phantasmal permits the mobile to notice the pending action and prevent it.

Different actions will notify different locations when they are pending. For instance, a movement action will notify the location from which the mobile is moving, and the new location to which it is moving. A mobile in either location can prevent the movement if it wishes. A communication action will notify the room from which the communication is occurring, and possibly also a wider area in some cases. In every case, the room where the mobile is taking action will be notified.

Example:

• Mobile A sends out notification of pending action Move(north) to room MyRoom
• Mobile B is in MyRoom, and receives notification that A is about to move north
• Mobile B is blocking the north exit, and returns a value to Phantasmal indicating that the action is not permitted, and should be cancelled.
• Mobile A is told that his action has been prevented by Mobile B.

For a specific action to occur, there are several notifications that go out. The first notification tells nearby actors that the action is preparing to take place, and gives them a chance to prevent it. The second notification indicates that the action will take place, and may not be cancelled. The third notification is to indicate that the action has successfully completed. In each case, the action structure will be sent out with the notification.

It may be useful to have a specific Phantasmal-based game be able to categorize 'subscriptions' to these events, since the game will potentially alter what verbs notify what areas, and may have particular kinds of events that are never subscribed to, or otherwise highly optimizable. That is beyond the current scope of this document.