> With regard to move counts, my advice is not to worry about them at all. Almost nobody plays AGL games to optimize move counts -- they just want to experience the game and world without worrying about that.

Right. Though the question might have been more about keeping the narration logical than optimizing move counts (so, "when" rather than "how"). Like, suppose a timer counts down to when a character arrives. Would it make sense for the action text to read:

"The apple is red, smallish, fresh except for a wormhole near the top.

"The door opens. Alice comes in."

Maybe. Maybe not. Under a different system, would it make sense for the action text to read:

"What do you want to do with the apple?

"The door opens. Alice comes in."

Again, maybe. But probably not.

>
> I'm kind of confused that "g {'loc1}" didn't work. It should have! In fact, some of the existing AGL games do this very thing.

That's seems to be a minor Rex bug. Instead of storing the location's name, S:loc stores the tag of the player's last move ("S:movetag"). g {'loc1} still works though, so long as {'loc1} is correct.