From 63c0f37538eb3b987105f8bf1ec4251e2c517c6e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Derek T. Jones" Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:38:01 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Give Gorreven its em dashes Fourteen of them, all previously written as " - ", the cowardly dash that looks least bad everywhere and right nowhere. Now that the wrapper keeps "---" with the word in front of it, the real thing is safe to use. Two of the fourteen sat at a fragment boundary, and the two kinds of boundary do not behave alike: - Consecutive ">>" lines are gathered into a paragraph with a space between them, so a dash may not straddle that boundary -- it would render as "sweaty--- and increasingly". The guard's uniform needed its line rewrapped so that "sweaty---and" falls inside one line. - Fragments of a single write are concatenated with nothing between them, so a dash ends the first fragment and the next word opens the second. The manila folder reads "folder and---no, I can't do this" across that seam, and the wrapper may break there, which is the one break inside a word that it allows. Left alone: the stencilled lettering on two signs, "GORREVEN PAPERS - DO NOT TOUCH" and "HIGH VOLTAGE - KEEP OFF", where the mark is painted on an object rather than spoken by the narrator. Also the spaced hyphens in comments, which never reach the wrapper, and the subtraction in debug.arch and starship.arch, which is arithmetic. " - " and "---" are both three characters, so no line changed length and no line grew past the margin. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_013Ui8UMgev1U8LW5iyQdSsJ --- games/gorreven.arch | 28 ++++++++++++++-------------- 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) diff --git a/games/gorreven.arch b/games/gorreven.arch index 37ad4b5..df59556 100644 --- a/games/gorreven.arch +++ b/games/gorreven.arch @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ methods >>I have become intimately familiar with the four bare walls of my cell and >>the dirty yellow light bulb that glares down from the ceiling. My cell >>has no door, but an alert guard blocks the doorway twenty-four hours a ->>day - or at least as far as I can tell. I have to sleep sometimes. They +>>day---or at least as far as I can tell. I have to sleep sometimes. They >>leave the guard in a doorless doorway so that he will constantly remain >>alert. No napping on the other side of a supposedly secure steel door. >>It doesn't surprise me; if I wanted to keep myself prisoner I would have @@ -703,8 +703,8 @@ methods if main.dobj ~= guard then write "It isn't on ", 'DEF' -> main.dobj, "." else { ->>Struggling, I manage to get the guard's uniform off of his fat, sweaty - ->>and increasingly cold - body. +>>Struggling, I manage to get the guard's uniform off of his fat, +>>sweaty---and increasingly cold---body. wearing := FALSE 'get' } @@ -1358,7 +1358,7 @@ methods 1 : { write "Velchny is sitting at his desk and glances up, annoyed. ", "\"How many times,\" he begins, \"must I tell you drooling ", "Neanderthal peons to KNOCK before...\" He suddenly sees my ", - "face. \"You - you - \" he chokes, groping for his weapon." + "face. \"You---you---\" he chokes, groping for his weapon." 'MENTION SELF' will_chase := TRUE } @@ -1389,8 +1389,8 @@ methods 1 : { write "For some reason I don't think he's completely dead. I leap ", "upon him, wielding my sharp piece of metal like a knife. In ", "fact he is alive, but too weak to fight me off. It takes ", - "longer than I would expect - Velchny has a strong physical ", - "constitution - but eventually I am the victor." + "longer than I would expect---Velchny has a strong physical ", + "constitution---but eventually I am the victor." alive := FALSE } } # case @@ -1481,7 +1481,7 @@ methods >> you are now holding is saturated with a >> powerful neurotoxin that is absorbed through >> the skin. By this time you have already ->> assimilated a fatal dose - even if you are a +>> assimilated a fatal dose---even if you are a >> very fast reader. Ha! Ha! Know as you die >> that you have been outsmarted by the inimitable >> Commandant Velchny! @@ -1742,7 +1742,7 @@ methods case tries +:= 1 of { 1 : >>Most unthinkable! 2 : >>Absolutely unspeakable! - 3 : write "Oh, very well. I flip open the manila folder and - ", + 3 : write "Oh, very well. I flip open the manila folder and---", "no, I can't do this. It wouldn't be right." 4 : write "Fine! Fine! I open the folder and take a peek. ", "It's all pretty much unintelligible technical gibberish ", @@ -2012,7 +2012,7 @@ methods "grabbing their guns and shouting. I keep my head low." else write "Several guards are sleeping on ", - "their cots - I'm gratified to see that their cots are not much more ", + "their cots---I'm gratified to see that their cots are not much more ", "luxurious than the one I had in my cell. Periodically a guard enters ", "or leaves. The light is low; in one corner I can hear a couple of ", "guards gambling." @@ -2071,8 +2071,8 @@ methods 'FIRSTDESC' : { write "As I enter the room I have to duck because the ", "ceiling is only five and a half feet tall. Clearly this ", "is an area not often entered by humans. All around me ", - "hideous demonic dogs - Rottweilers, Dobermans, pit bulls, ", - "and German Shepherds - are snarling and biting the bars of ", + "hideous demonic dogs---Rottweilers, Dobermans, pit bulls, ", + "and German Shepherds---are snarling and biting the bars of ", "their cages. They're looking at me with bloodlust in ", "their eyes; they already know there's something wrong about ", "me. Maybe they've already been taught my scent." @@ -2526,7 +2526,7 @@ fence sfence location : south_fence otherside : got_killed end room wasteland desc : "wasteland" methods 'ENTERED' : stop "I run a short ways out into the wasteland at top ", - "speed. It is a valiant effort - if somewhat quixotic. ", + "speed. It is a valiant effort---if somewhat quixotic. ", "I'm barely a hundred yards away when I'm spotted and ", "a rifle shot sends me stumbling to the ground. The ", "shots that follow push me painfully into oblivion." @@ -2561,7 +2561,7 @@ methods "I trudge quietly into the woods, grim and dejected." else stop "And they still do. I've escaped, but with what? My miserable ", - "life - which, now, may not be worth the trouble I took to ", + "life---which, now, may not be worth the trouble I took to ", "save it. I slink, shameful, into the woods, like a rat or a ", "weasel, trying desperately to think of other things." } @@ -2575,6 +2575,6 @@ methods 'ENTERED' : stop "But as I drop over the other side, it is too late. The ", "nearby guards at the entrance have spotted me and my ", "furtive actions make me the immediate target of ", - "suspicion - and a target, anyway. The crescendoing ", + "suspicion---and a target, anyway. The crescendoing ", "pain lancing through my body is mercifully short-lived." end