plotscript problem, solution and question

For me, the ohr is the game. When I want to do something it creates a problem and the game is finding a solution. But this one puzzles me.

Here is the code.


The compiler says "-playerSpeed" has not been defined.
Okay. So my solution is...


Problem solved.
But here's my question.
Shouldn't I be able to give a variable a negative value by placing a "-" in front of it because I can do it with numbers and a variable is just representing a number?
And was there a better way of solving this problem?

Thanks for your help!

The problem is that HamsterSpeak doesn't have the negation operator, -. Negative numbers are a special case, they're not actually the negation operator applied to a positive number (which is technically the case in most other programming languages). You can either write 0 -- x or -1 * x instead of -x.

I really would like to add both a negation operator (not really needed), and an alternative spelling of - instead of -- for subtraction, but it isn't really possible to add it in a back-compatible way without something like requiring you declare "from future import minus" at the top of the file...

That explanation makes sense.
And your two ways of handling it were simpler than mine.
I learned things today. Thank you TMC