Rooms are places that the player can be in, and they can contain objects. They need not be rooms as such - they could equally well be the insides of vehicles, or "outside" places such as a street - basically, any location in your game needs to be set up as a room.
Name: This is the name of the room as it is known to Quest and QDK, and by default it is also the name that the player will see for this room. All rooms must have different names.
Alias: If you want to present the player with a different name for this room, enter it here. If you want several rooms to be known to the player by the same name (for example, you might want multiple rooms known as "street"), you must specify different real names in the "Name" box (for example, "street1", "street2" etc.) and give them the same alias (in this case, "street").
Prefix: The prefix specifies a word to print before the room name to make things sounds more natural. For example, when the player enters a room such as "kitchen" , Quest will display "You are in kitchen" if you don't specify any prefix. To make this sound more natural, use a prefix of "the", to make Quest display "You are in the kitchen".
You can choose from three different options:
Description prefix: This box only appears when a Standard style description is selected. If the "Description prefix" is left blank, the default "You are in" is printed before the room name in Quest's description of the room. By typing something in this box, you can change these words - if you want the room name to be added after the description prefix, finish the text with a colon ":".
So, if you have a room called "box" and you want Quest to print "You are inside a small, dark box", use "You are inside a small, dark:" in the description prefix. Alternatively you could just type the text "You are inside a small, dark box" in the description prefix, or as another option you could use "You are inside:" in the description prefix and have "a small, dark" as your room prefix.
Here you can specify which directional exits are available from this room.
When you look at one of the direction lists, you can choose from:
The "Out to:" box works slightly differently - you must specify a room before you can specify a script associated with going out to that room. If a script is specified, that script will be run instead of going to that room. You can also, optionally, specify a prefix for the "Out" room - for example, if the player can go out to a room called "street", use a prefix of "the" and Quest will display "You can go out to the street" in the room description (rather than "You can go out to street", which is what would be printed if you did not specify a prefix).
For all directions other than "Out", when you select a destination for the exit rather than a script, you can have QDK automatically create the corresponding exit in the other direction. For example, if you create an exit east from room A to room B, QDK can automatically create the exit west from room B back to to room A. You can turn this feature off for a particular exit by unticking the "Create corresponding exit in the other direction" box. You can turn this feature off by default from QDK's Options window.
Here you can set up exits from this room which can be accessed by the player typing "GO TO" followed by the name of the place.
For each exit, if you don't specify any script, the player will automatically go to the room. If you do specify a script, that script will run instead - though of course you can make the script move the player to the relevant room within the script.
You can optionally specify a prefix. This is displayed before the exit name in the description. For example, if you add a room "bedroom", Quest will display "You can go to bedroom". More natural English would be for Quest to display "You can go to the bedroom", so in this case you should use a prefix of "the".
Edit Properties and Actions: Allows you to set up properties, actions and included types for this room. See the Object Types page for information on using this window.
Edit Custom Player Commands: Allows you to set up custom commands that apply for this room only - see Custom Commands for information.
When the player enters the room: This script is run when the player enters the room.
Before / After each turn in this room: These work like the "Before each turn" and "After each turn" scripts on the Game Properties window, except that they only apply when the player is in this room. If you tick "Override script specified on Game editing screen", this script will be run instead of, rather than in addition to, any before or after turn script specified on the Game editing screen.
Edit Misc ASL Script Tags: Allows you to enter additional ASL script for this room.
Here you can add, remove and edit the objects that are in this room.
You may see other tabs in addition to those described above, if you have included libraries in your game. Refer to the relevant library documentation for details - the name of the library that has added the tab will be displayed at the bottom of the pane for that tab.