I made enough progress to be functional. It seems like a baby COW to me, minus the persistence, of course. Kinda felt bad using it for my final presentation though, since I was one of two people who actually cared enough to legitimately try, and the only one to research Java in their free time. Oh well, only had one error, easily fixed. Deleting things was briefly wonky, but I hadn't been deleting all stored values...blah blah blah. Ended up with some inefficient little method of storing an object in two different HashMaps, one for descriptions and one for locations. It works. Somehow, possibly exploiting a weakness in here somewhere, I managed to be able to have objects in multiple locations, which allows my iffy Traveling system to work. Basically just going 'into' a designated object, in COW-terms.
I'll have to put forth some extra research into this JSON business, as it looks promising. My teacher suggested a method of manipulating/creating text files through the Java program for data storage, but I've yet to investigate that either.
With the immanency of the final out of the way, I've been slowed by homework and Dwarf Fortress, a notably complicated but horribly entertaining little downloadable game.
Anywho, as I'm rather positive your Perl-code nudges my personal location-method out of the way, I can't really imagine alternatives to multiple-location objects in COW...though I pondered an object code that would enable them to be periodically pointed out and interacted with.
But that may or may not be more complicated. All food for thought.
Prototype! Ah, I love that game. My poor laptop can barely handle it when the streets get crowded, but it's immensely entertaining. Once all of the abilities are had, you're set for all sorts of fun. Also: steal thermobaric tanks whenever possible.
I can personally recommend Portal, all of the Half-Life games, and I prefer Morrowind over Oblivion, but that's just because I think Oblivion is a prettied up and overly simplified version of Morrowind. Which rocks, if in a bit of an oldish way.
I also recommend Fallout 3, from what I've tinkered with. Entertaining game too. If you're the type for it, Left 4 Dead 2 is the game I play the most.
Anyway, I should stop babbling about video games and resume my research/Dwarf-managing. Have fun!