Hi, newbie to quest here, making a text-based game for a school project, so sharpish help would be appreciated
I'm trying to add a scene where, when the player walks outside they see an arrow flying towards them. They have 5 seconds to type the word 'duck' or they die.
I have made a timer called 'arrow timer', set it to 5 seconds and made it start when the player walks outside. After 5 seconds it prints a game over message and ends the game.
This is as far as I can get
Any tips, tricks, step-by-step instructions?

Thanking you in advance

PS: If possible, I would like to have the player type 'duck', not 'duck arrow' or something similar.

Here is my first tip: timerevents are bad style, especially if you have only 5 seconds to find and type the right word. I would stop playing such a game immediately. If you still want to do it this way, you should add as many possible phrases, not only 'duck'. So it should be possible to 'lie', 'lie down', 'duck down','dodge'... (by the way, what happens if you leave the room with the arrow?) Remember, it should not be your goal to frustrate your players, but to please them.

So, you have created a timer. Now you need a new command smething like this:

Thank you so much for your help!
The game actually says something along the lines of 'the arrow is flying towards you, DUCK!', so it's more a test of reaction speed than frantically searching for the right word, so I'm hoping it will be okay.

Ok, then it is ok

Personally, I would either increase the amount of time the player is given, or make it with a turnscript instead, so they have, say 3 chances to type a valid command to duck the arrow or they die. It creates a similar effect but won't frustrate players as much. Text adventures aren't really known for having real-time reactionary events, which is one of the reasons people like them. There are just too many variables, like people's typing speeds, typos, etc. that will probably just make it too frustrating.