Hi, sorry about the vague subject, what I'm trying to do is lock the players actions to a few choices.

For example, upon entering a room, after displaying a message I want the only options available to the player to be
-use X item on Y
and
one or two cardinal directions, eg south/east

I considered tying a 'game end' and message explaining that your choices are limited, but this seems a tedious way to do it and I'm sure there is a simpler way. Do you guys know of anything?
As always, thanks in advance

For the directions, it's fairly simple: they can only go in directions you provide exits for anyway.

As far as limiting options, are you saying that the objects X and Y normally have other command/verb choices that you want to disable? If so, then I can think of a couple of possibilities, depending on exactly what you have to disable:

- Override all the verbs that cause undesired behavior in that room to prevent them from executing.
- I'm not sure what these objects are: does the player get them in this room, or are they used elsewhere in the game and now need only that one action? If they are specific room objects, then you can control the verbs on them. If they have other uses in other rooms, then you can either have the script behaviors conditional on the room, or perhaps even swap out the real objects for dummy ones that only support the verb you want once the player enters the room. (This sounds like end of game, so you won't need the objects after that.)

If you can describe more what your situation is and what you need to disable, there might be other options.

Thanks for the reply. What im trying to do is as follows:
the player enters a room, and is presented with a dangerous enemy. Now, if the player has an item from the previous room, they can use that item to block the passage so the enemy cannot get to him.
If he does not have this object, his only option is to flee into an airduct.
I'm really looking at a way to have the player perform one of these options while presenting an air of urgency- I can probably overcome it by wording the encounter to tell the player he has limited options. I just dont want the player to break the game continuity by entering the previous room or messing around with items.

Are you best just offering a menu of options then? If the player has access to the command line, he will try to mess with objects, even if those attempts are doomed to fail.