Digital Delights - Avatars, Virtual Worlds, Gamification

Interactive Fiction (formerly referred to as Text Adventures) are a cross between reading a book and playing a game, where you control the main character. Rather than reading the story from start to finish, you interact with everything by typing commands at a prompt, discovering things as you go along. Well written games give you, the player, the impression that anything you type is understood by giving a sensible and meaningful response. Indeed, part of the fun of playing interactive fiction games is discovering responses to things you didn't expect to have been catered for.

Most interactive fiction follows the same basic rules - these include walking from location to location using compass directions (north, east, south-west etc). You can normally pick objects up, drop them, put them on things, talk to characters, push things and much more. This handy sheet for beginners explains many common commands used in games.