FAQ

The IFWiki Interactive Fiction FAQ offers succinct and current information for newcomers to IF and the IF community. It answers those questions that come up frequently and directs readers to the most important online resources.

Welcome to the IF community!

What is "interactive fiction"?

In the past, the term referred mainly to parser-based programs (usually called "games" or, less often, "works") that let you type commands to a character. This character wanders around in a simulated world of some sort, typically one that is described in text. These parser-based interactive fiction games are sometimes called "text adventures". Examples include Adventure, Zork, Deadline, Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Hobbit, and Curses.

More recently, the IF community has expanded its definition of interactive fiction to include choice-based works (sometimes called CYOA, from "Choose Your Own Adventure") as well. In Choice-based interactive fiction, players navigate through the story by selecting hyperlinks, or by periodically choosing from a list of options to determine how the story will progress.

Some people include gamebooks and graphical adventure games such as Myst when they use the term interactive fiction, but those sorts of works aren't the focus of this FAQ, nor the main concern of the IF community.

The IFWiki offers a formal definition of interactive fiction; for another definition, see "Frequently Asked Questions About Interactive Fiction" on the IFTF website. There is an older discussion on the topic in the rec.arts.int-fiction FAQ; and other definitions can be found in various works, such as the book Twisty Little Passages.

What happened to Infocom, Magnetic Scrolls etc?

None of the companies that produced IF during the 1980s are still around and producing IF. We have wiki pages for Infocom, Magnetic Scrolls, Level 9 and other publishers which provide historical information.

Interactive fiction from the Infocom era is often hard to find outside of abandonware sites and online auction sites, although some of it has been made available to the public by the company that produced it.

How can I download and play IF?

There are several websites listing and describing games. IFDB is very comprehensive and focusses on ratings and reviews, CASA focusses on maps and solutions for classic text adventures, and IFWiki focusses on information about games within the context of interactive fiction generally.

Most games can now be played in a web browser. IFDB and IFWiki both have "Play online" buttons for many games. This will help you to get started quickly.

Some games need to be (or can be) downloaded and played on your computer. Many of these games are available from the IF Archive, and the websites mentioned above often link to it. The archive not only hosts games, but also walkthroughs, interpreters, authoring systems, and more.

When you download a story file you will usually also need an interpreter to play the game, just like you need a player for music or video files. A game's format will be listed on the relevant wiki page. You can then use that information to choose an interpreter from these lists:

Nearly all games are free to download, even formerly commercial games, though occasionally games are offered for sale.

Where can I find out what games I might enjoy?

• IFDB, the Interactive Fiction Database, is a catalog of thousands of IF games. You can search for highly-rated games, read reviews, browse recommended lists, or create a poll to ask other users for suggestions.
• IFWiki is also a useful source of information:
  • Our games database can be searched or browsed.
  • We also have a database of past events, so you could search for past winners, particularly from the The Annual IF Competition or the XYZZY Awards.
  • You might find inspiration from our list of Competition-winning games or the Cover art gallery.
• Several members of the community have extensive collections of their personal recommendations, for instance, Emily Short's "Reading IF" page.

What can I do when I get stuck?

If you've never played parser-based interactive fiction before, you may want to check out the beginner's "postcard" guide to IF, which is available on the parser-based interactive fiction page and was created by the People's Republic of Interactive Fiction.

Parser games often will provide their own hints. As suggested in the postcard, the game might suggest you type ABOUT, INFO or HELP. Another common word is HINT.

You can find hints and walkthroughs for many games on the sites mentioned above. Hints are often context specific, whereas walkthroughs will describe how to complete the game from start to finish.

You can ask online for assistance in your specific situation. Some websites are mentioned below. The Intfiction forum, in particular, is good, and has a "spoiler" feature that allows you to blur text until a reader clicks on it.

How can I post a review of a game I've finished?

Many people add reviews on IFDB. During and after IFComp many people leave reviews of games on the Intfiction forum. You could add a review to your own website and add a link to one of the main community websites.

What is this "IF Comp"?

The Annual IF Competition is an online competition for short games (ones you can complete in fewer than two hours), started in 1996 and currently run by Jacqueline Ashwell. Anyone can vote in the competition. Having played and rated five games is the only qualification necessary for judges. Recent years have seen dozens of games: IF Comp 2024 had 67 entries.

How can I write my own game?

The most popular authoring systems for parser-based interactive fiction are Inform, followed by TADS, although there are many others. For choice-based games the most common authoring systems are Twine and ChoiceScript.

Check out IFWiki's list of stable authoring systems, or use this navigation box to find other authoring system pages:

It is also possible use a standard programming language, or even write your own authoring system from scratch!

Which authoring system is best?

There really isn't a way to say which IF system you should use; what you should do is take a look at all of them and see which one fits you best.

You could play a range of games and see what style of game you like the most.

You should also consider the development communities for different systems, what reference information is available for each, the system's capabilities (including multimedia, if that's important to you), and whether interpreters are available on the platforms you care about.

How do I get people to test my game?

You can ask for testers on one of the community sites listed here. Often you'll have an easier time finding testers if you test a few games yourself.

How do I get people to play my game?

Releasing it in the The Annual IF Competition can be a very effective way, if it fits the bill by being a two-hour game that is not based on previous copyrighted work.

There are other competitions and jams at other points in the year which are less popular but still provide good ways to release a game.

If you don't release your game as part of a competition, you should announce your game on the IF community sites listed here.

You may also want to publicize your game outside the IF community, if there are other groups who might be interested in it. For example, the Electronic Literature Organization if your work is written for a literary audience, or TIGSource if your IF might appeal to the general indie games community. Outside the IF community there are increasingly more competition venues and forums for games such as IF.

Where can I talk with other people who are into IF?

A good place to start is the Intfiction forum (which has largely superseded rec.*.int-fiction).

The Interactive Fiction Database allows users to post reviews and to create polls asking for IF recommendations.

Planet IF is a blog aggregator that follows many IF-related blogs and RSS feeds.

For real-time interaction, IFers founded the ifMUD in 1997, and it's still actively used today. The annual awards ceremony for the XYZZY Awards, the Oscars of interactive fiction, was held on ifMUDfor years (see the transcript from the XYZZY Awards 2013).

2009 saw the formation of the first IF meetup group, the Boston-based People's Republic of Interactive Fiction, and since then more groups have formed, including the Seattle IF Group, Chicago Interactive Fiction Group and the SF Bay Area Interactive Fiction Group.

In 2019, the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation hosted NarraScope, a narrative games conference, for the first time.

IFWiki has categories listing other communities and websites.

How can I keep up with IF news and events?

Besides following Planet IF and the other community websites mentioned above, you can also check IFWiki's Main_Page which contains an Event calendar, or follow and speak to people on social media.