The Parser is Language Specific

Now sure if this is true in other platforms like Inform or TADS, but while designing Sharpee it became clear that the Parser makes a ton of assumptions about vocabulary and command structure that are directly tied to the language the author is using to tell their interactive story.

I already have a Language Provider package that hosts English messages and constants as 'lang-en-us'. It wasn't a huge leap to refactor the parser to be language specific as 'parser-en-us' and in its own package.

Then it was another very simple leap to how this works in a story. Here's an unimplemented sample piece of code that shows where this is going. Note this is using the standard library directly. We're still going to add another fluent layer so it's a simpler interface for authors.

The important part to highlight is the config object. You see language: 'en-us', which tells Sharpee to use the lang-en-us Language Provider package for messages and the parser-en-us Parser package for parsing player commands. If there are packages for lang-es-mx and parser-es-mx, then the author could configure language: 'es-mx' and create a Spanish language story.

// my-story.ts
import { Story, StoryConfig } from '@sharpee/engine';
import { WorldModel, IFEntity, EntityBuilder } from '@sharpee/world-model';

export class SpaceAdventureStory implements Story {
  config: StoryConfig = {
    id: 'space-adventure',
    title: 'Space Station Mystery',
    author: 'Jane Developer',
    version: '1.0.0',
    language: 'en-us',  // Uses English parser and language
    description: 'A mystery aboard a space station',
    tags: ['sci-fi', 'mystery', 'puzzle']
  };

  initializeWorld(world: WorldModel): void {
    // Create space station rooms
    const bridge = new EntityBuilder('bridge')
      .withName('Bridge')
      .withDescription('The command center of the space station.')
      .withTrait('if.trait.room')
      .build();
      
    const corridor = new EntityBuilder('corridor')
      .withName('Main Corridor')
      .withDescription('A long corridor with viewports showing stars.')
      .withTrait('if.trait.room')
      .build();
      
    world.addEntity(bridge);
    world.addEntity(corridor);
    
    // Connect rooms
    world.relate(bridge, 'if.rel.exit.south', corridor);
    world.relate(corridor, 'if.rel.exit.north', bridge);
  }

  createPlayer(world: WorldModel): IFEntity {
    const player = new EntityBuilder('player')
      .withName('Commander Blake')
      .withDescription('You are Commander Blake, investigating the mystery.')
      .withTrait('if.trait.player')
      .withTrait('if.trait.container')
      .build();
      
    // Start in the bridge
    const bridge = world.getEntity('bridge');
    if (bridge) {
      world.relate(player, 'if.rel.within', bridge);
    }
    
    return player;
  }

  getCustomActions() {
    // Story-specific actions
    return [
      {
        id: 'space-adventure.scan',
        patterns: ['scan', 'analyze'],
        execute: (context) => {
          // Custom scanning action
        }
      }
    ];
  }
}

I'm still working through custom messages and actions and how they get registered, mainly so the eventual Text Service can query everything and report the current state properly.