I wanted just a precision :

can it lead to errors if I don't declare a flag at the beginning of a game (in define game, startscript { etc...) and test this flag during the game ?
I think it won't, since the test is the check if the flag is present or not, but I want to be sure of this...

There's no need to define a flag at the beginning of a game - since the only way you could would be to set it ON, which usually won't be sensible. So you can test for the presence of a flag which you've never mentioned before, without problems.

Just on the topic of flags, what is the point of a flag? What is it designed to do?

Matthew G.

Matthew wrote

Just on the topic of flags, what is the point of a flag? What is it designed to do?

Facetious answer is 'whatever you want it to do'.

In fact you use flags as a convenient way to keep track of things during a game.

Say that you need your player to turn on the water supply to a hose before he can use the hose to extinguish a fire.

When the player turns on the water during the game you could (in code) set a flag called 'water_available'. Now you have a nice convenient way to test whether the player can fight the fire by checking to see if the flag 'water_available' is set. If set your player can fight the fire if not he can't.

'water_available' is thus indicating a true/false (or yes/no) state and is a sort of "signal flag" to the status of the water supply - so we call it a 'flag'

Hope that helps,

Al

Thanks Al

Matthew G.