§11.6. Ending The Story
Play can end in many ways, at the writer's discretion:
end the story;
end the story finally;
end the story saying "You have reached an impasse, a stalemate";
end the story finally saying "You have succeeded.";
The phrase "end the story" by itself will finish play, printing "*** The End ***". Using one of the phrases with "saying..." allows us to specify some other text with which to conclude. Including "finally" means that the player has earned access to AMUSING text and other notes, if any of these are provided.
We can eliminate the asterisked headline entirely by removing the rule that prints it, thus:
The print obituary headline rule is not listed in any rulebook.
The next step is to print the player's score and, if applicable, the rank he achieved. By default a story doesn't feature scoring, but the following use option will incorporate it:
Use scoring.
Then, if we want to allow a score but alter the way it is reported, we may remove or modify the print final score rule, as in
The print final score rule is not listed in any rulebook.
or perhaps something like
The chatty final score rule is listed instead of the print final score rule in for printing the player's obituary.
This is the chatty final score rule: say "Wow, you achieved a whole [score in words] point[s] out of a possible [maximum score in words]! I'm very proud of you. This was a triumph. I'm being so sincere right now."
What happens next is normally that the player is invited to RESTART, RESTORE (from a saved story), QUIT or UNDO the last command. The presence of the question can somewhat undercut a tragedy, and Battle of Ridgefield shows another way to go out.
If we do leave the question in, the text is formed by the Table of Final Question Options, which by default looks like this:
Table of Final Question Options
final question wording | only if victorious | topic | final response rule | final response activity |
"RESTART" | false | "restart" | immediately restart the VM rule | -- |
"RESTORE a saved story" | false | "restore" | immediately restore saved story rule | -- |
"see some suggestions for AMUSING things to do" | true | "amusing" | -- | amusing a victorious player |
"QUIT" | false | "quit" | immediately quit rule | -- |
"UNDO the last command" | false | "undo" | immediately undo rule | -- |
Because this is a table, we may alter the behavior by changing entries or continuing the table. Finality shows how we might take out the option to UNDO the last command, for instance.
Using an ending phrase that includes "finally" tells Inform to include the options that are marked "only if victorious". One common use is to let the player read some special bit of additional text, perhaps describing easter eggs he might have missed in the story or presenting some authorial notes. Xerxes demonstrates a simple AMUSING command to read final information, while Jamaica 1688 shows how to add completely new elements to the list of options.
Old-school adventures expected their adventurers to die early and die often. Labyrinth of Ghosts shows how the residue of such past attempts can be preserved into subsequent attempts, using an external file. Big Sky Country shows how a player can be resurrected by, let us say, some beneficent god, so that a player can even die more than once in the same attempt.
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By default, Inform reminds the player that he has the option of typing UNDO after a story-ending action. This is generally good practice, especially for the sake of novice players who might not be aware of this possibility otherwise, and might be frustrated by a loss they could easily step back from. Just occasionally, though, we may decide that the player does not deserve any such notification:
The Table of Final Question Options determines what options are to be given to the player after the story ends. We can change what is mentioned there by altering the entries. (The example Jamaica 1688 explains this table in more detail, and demonstrates some other things that we might do with it.)
And if we decided that we didn't want the player to be able to undo the command at all, we should add the use option
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By default, Inform reminds the player that he has the option of typing UNDO after a story-ending action. This is generally good practice, especially for the sake of novice players who might not be aware of this possibility otherwise, and might be frustrated by a loss they could easily step back from. Just occasionally, though, we may decide that the player does not deserve any such notification:
The Table of Final Question Options determines what options are to be given to the player after the story ends. We can change what is mentioned there by altering the entries. (The example Jamaica 1688 explains this table in more detail, and demonstrates some other things that we might do with it.)
And if we decided that we didn't want the player to be able to undo the command at all, we should add the use option
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