I pulled together a small, working mini adevnture. I decided to split the definition of objects and rooms into two different hashes.

Objects can also be in a virtual room (like the "inventory" room i use here. But you can also send them into a non-existing room to make them go away or vice versa.

The anonymous subs also allow you to change objects and rooms as you wish. For example, a closed door might have an action "open" that rewrites it's own description as well as adding an exit to the room. Closing that door again can do the opposite (return original description, remove the rooms exit)

Here's the code:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;


# Current location of player and a helper variable
my $location = 'lounge';
my $oldlocation = '';

# define some rooms to have, uh, room to run around
my %rooms = (
    lounge  => {
        name    => 'The Lounge',
        description => 'You are in the lounge, a rather gloomy place.'
+,
        exits   => {
            'west'  => 'cavern1',
            'east'  => 'monastery',
        },
    },
    'cavern1'  => {
        name    => 'Dark cavern',
        description => 'You are in a dark cavern. Bloodstains mare the
+ walls',
        exits   => {
            east    => 'lounge',
            west    => 'cavern2',
        },
    },
    'cavern2'  => {
        name    => 'Completly dark cavern',
        description => 'You are in a very dark cavern. You hear strang
+e noises, but the only thing you can see is a glimmer from the easter
+n entrance.',
        exits   => {
            east    => 'cavern1',
            west    => sub {die "You get eaten by a grue!";},
            north    => sub {
                    print "A hyperdimensional field wraps you in color
+ed lights.\n";
                    sleep(10);
                    print "You feel like you are beeing pulled into a 
+randomly selected room...\n";
                    sleep(10);
                    if(rand(100) > 50) {
                        $location = 'cavern1';
                    } else {
                        $location = 'lounge';
                    }
                    print "You materialize in...\n";
                    sleep(10);
                },
            south   => sub {die "NO-COFFEE-ERROR: Unimplemented room!"
+;},
        },
    },
    'monastery' => {
        name    => 'The Monastery',
        description    => 'You are in the monastery. All around you, g
+eeks are writing Perl code.',
        exits  => {
            west    => 'lounge',
        },
    },
);

# Put some stuff in that room
my %objects = (    
    'table'  => {
        location => 'lounge',
        short   => 'a small wooden table',
        long    => 'It\'s a small, wooden table. It looks cheap.',
        actions => {
            take    => 'You put the wooden table in your magic pocket.
+',
            drop    => 'You carefully put down the table.',
        },
    },
    'monk'  => {
        location    => 'monastery',
        short   => 'a Perl monk',
        long    => 'A scruffy guy with long hair and a T-Shirt that re
+ads "touch() && die()"\n',
        actions => {
            touch    => sub{
                print "You touch the monk. He instantly send SIGNAL 11
+ back to you\n";
                die;
            },
        },
    },
    'book'  => {
        location    => 'inventory',
        short   => 'a pocket book',
        long    => 'It\'s the Perl regular expression reference guide 
+pocket book.',
        actions => {
            take    => 'You jump up and down in joy!',
            drop    => 'Your mood suddenly changes for the worse :-(',
            read    => 'You suddenly feel much smarter.',
        },
    },
    'sign'  => {
        location    => 'monastery',
        short   => 'a sign',
        long    => 'A big warning sign with big red letters!',
        actions => {
            read    => 'It says: "TYE BROKE THE MONASTERY!"',
        },
    },
);


while(1) {
    #print the room description
    if($location ne $oldlocation) {
        $oldlocation = $location;
        print "\n\n";
        print $rooms{$location}->{name}, "\n";
        print '=' x length($rooms{$location}->{name}), "\n\n";
        if(!defined($rooms{$location}->{visited}) || !$rooms{$location
+}->{visited}) {
            $rooms{$location}->{visited} = 1;
            print $rooms{$location}->{description}, "\n";
        }
        print "You see:\n";
        foreach my $key (sort keys %objects) {
            if($objects{$key}->{location} eq $location) {
                print "  ", $objects{$key}->{short}, "\n";
            }
        }
        print "There are exits in this direction(s): ", join(',', sort
+ keys %{$rooms{$location}->{exits}}), "\n";
    }
    
    # Ask the player what to do
    print "What next: ";
    my $cmd = <>;
    
    # Primitively clean up the input
    chomp $cmd;
    $cmd = lc $cmd;
    $cmd =~ s/(\s+)/\ /g;
    $cmd =~ s/^\ //;
    $cmd =~ s/\ $//;
    next if($cmd eq '');
    
    # allow the player to finish
    if($cmd =~ /(quit|exit)/i) {
        print "Goodbye.\n";
        last;
    }
    
    # We don't like nice users. Just state what you want!
    if($cmd =~ /please/i) {
        print "I don't know how to please!\n";
        next;
    }
    
    # Force re-displaying the room description
    if($cmd eq 'look') {
        $oldlocation = '';
        $rooms{$location}->{visited} = 0;
        next;
    }
    
    # Wanna take us to another room?
    if(defined($rooms{$location}->{exits}->{$cmd})) {
        # Check to see if its a code section, else just move
        # the player to that room
        if(ref($rooms{$location}->{exits}->{$cmd}) eq 'CODE') {
            $rooms{$location}->{exits}->{$cmd}->();
        } else {
            $location = $rooms{$location}->{exits}->{$cmd};
        }
        next;
    }
    
    # The inventory command
    if($cmd eq 'inventory') {
        print "Your open pocket reveals:\n";
        foreach my $key (sort keys %objects) {
            if($objects{$key}->{location} eq 'inventory') {
                print "  ", $objects{$key}->{short}, "\n";
            }
        }        
    }
    
    # Look for a simple two-verb command
    if($cmd =~ /(\w+)\ (\w+)/) {
        my ($verb, $thing) = ($1, $2);
        
        # Check if the object exists
        if(!defined($objects{$thing})) {
            print "Sorry, the programmer never invented a $thing!\n";
            next;
        }
        
        # Ok, next, let's see if the object is in reach
        if($objects{$thing}->{location} ne 'inventory' && $objects{$th
+ing}->{location} ne $location) {
            print "You can't see $thing anywhere near you!\n";
            next;
        }
        
        # Allow "describe" action
        if($verb eq "describe") {
            print $objects{$thing}->{long}, "\n";
            next;
        }        
        
        # Check if it is an allowed action for this object
        if(!defined($objects{$thing}->{actions}->{$verb})) {
            print "You can't do that to $thing\n";
            next;
        }
        
        # First of all, if the action is a sub, execute it and be done
+ with it.
        if(ref($objects{$thing}->{actions}->{$verb}) eq 'CODE') {
            $objects{$thing}->{actions}->{$verb}->();
            next;
        }
        
        # Inventory-related actions
        if($verb eq 'take') {
            if($objects{$thing}->{location} eq 'inventory') {
                print "You already have that in your magic pocket!\n";
                next;
            }
            $objects{$thing}->{location} = 'inventory';
            print $objects{$thing}->{actions}->{$verb}, "\n";
            next;
        }
        if($verb eq 'drop') {
            if($objects{$thing}->{location} ne 'inventory') {
                print "You can't find that object anywhere within your
+ vast magic pocket!\n";
                next;
            }
            $objects{$thing}->{location} = $location;
            print $objects{$thing}->{actions}->{$verb}, "\n";
            next;
        }
        
        
        # Uhm, ok, this seems to be a text-printing-only action, like 
+reading a sign
        print $objects{$thing}->{actions}->{$verb}, "\n";
        
        next;
        
    }
    
    # Scratch head and try again
    if(rand(100) > 50) {
        print "Sorry, could you state that more clearly?\n";
    } else {
        print "I'll just stand around scratching my head instead...\n"
+;
    }
}
[download]

Of course, you might want to split all the room and object definitions into multiple files.