What Is IF?

"No matter how small an Adventure you write, it will take far, far more time and effort than you thought it would."--Peter Killworth

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NOTE: The following is geared toward Z-code games, particularly those written in Graham Nelson's Inform. You can find other introductions and explanations elsewhere in the Interactive Fiction links.

I've shamelessly adapted this introduction from the one included in the HELP/ABOUT menu of my first IF, The Moonlit Tower, on the premise that there wasn't any sense doing it over from scratch.

Interactive Fiction: Game or Story?

Interactive Fiction (IF) can refer to old-style text-adventure games such as Zork along with newer games written by a community of programmer-authors. After a brief introduction and perhaps a "splash-screen" or two, you're typically deposited in a room, free to look around, talk to the game's characters, or do whatever else needs doing. Interaction is via text, which describes the world and its responses; this is how you guide your character through the gameworld and story. In practice, the things you can do are limited by the parser and the programmer's foresight, and many games adhere to certain conventions (e.g. you can't go around burning everything, you have an innately perfect sense of direction to make navigation less cumbersome).

Puzzle-oriented IF is more "game"-like, in that you are often trying to figure out what to do to which object so that you can uncover more of the IF's mysteries, be they locations, information, or yet more puzzles.

Story-oriented IF places more emphasis on narrative, and may have a coherent "plot" through which you attempt to guide the protagonist.

The two orientations are not mutually incompatible (or comprehensive). Both types can be open-ended to various degrees, or linear; well-written or poorly written; easy or difficult; original or hackneyed. The tension between the different possibilities of what you can do with IF can lead to some spectacular experiences. To some extent, the question "game or story?" depends on the individual work and the player's approach.

Getting Started

When you start the IF, you're deposited in an unfamiliar world. What you do next will depend on the particular IF and the scene it sets. In the case of The Moonlit Tower (my own first work), you're wandering around the eponymous tower trying to figure out what's going on. You do this by typing commands (by convention, given in ALL-CAPS) at the command prompt, which looks like this:

and hitting enter, at which point the game responds.

To move around, N (NORTH), S (SOUTH), E (EAST), W (WEST), NW (NORTHWEST), NE (NORTHEAST), SW (SOUTHWEST), SE (SOUTHEAST), U (UP), and D (DOWN) are handy. Some games also use IN and OUT. Either the short or long form (in parentheses) will be understood, but given how often these commands are used, you'll find yourself using the short form in no time. Again by convention, the viewpoint ccharacter has perfect direction sense. It makes life more convenient.

X (EXAMINE) is indispensable. For example, you can:

>X SELF
As good looking as ever.

>X MIRROR
You can't see any such thing.

The game will tell you what there is worth noting, or that it doesn't know what you're talking about (if you try to EXAMINE something that isn't there, as in the mirror example above). Similarly, LOOK will repeat the description of the room you're in so you can refresh your memory. By default the game gives the long description of the room only when you enter it for the first time or if you're LOOKing; you can set the game so it gives you the long description every time you enter by typing VERBOSE.

You can TAKE or GET things, and I (INVENTORY) will tell you what you're currently carrying. Larger or more complex games may impose a limit on how much you can carry, by weight, number of objects, or some other system.

You can also HIT (something), TOUCH (something), SMELL or TASTE (something), DROP (something), SING, ATTACH (something) to (something else), and more, with varying effects. If something occurs to you, try it. To some extent each game has its own verbs or actions, although the ones listed above (among others) are standard for games written in Inform.

Some games do "punish" you to some degree for ill-advised experimentation, which may render the game unwinnable or prevent you from solving some puzzle. It is considered fair play for the game to warn you of its "cruelty rating" in its HELP, ABOUT, or CREDITS (at least one of these is implemented in many games). The Moonlit Tower, for example, is "polite," which means that it's difficult to put the game in an unwinnable state and you'll know if you've done so. To a limited extent, UNDO (which undoes your last move, and only your last move), SAVE (usually available), and RESTORE (which loads a saved game) may ameliorate this, not to mention that it keeps you from having to start over from square one if you decide you've had enough for the session. You can have as many saved games as you want, provided you give them all distinct filenames. Generally the game will suggest something like MOONLIT.SAV as a filename.

If the situation is truly dire you can RESTART or, of course, Q (QUIT).

Finally, if you get well and truly stuck, many games have either a HELP or ABOUT menu or else some notes with hints. If you are not averse to such things (I'm not), you may be able to find a walkthrough for the game. The IF Archive makes walkthroughts available for download along with the game when available.

As with most things, the fastest way to figure out how IF works is to plunge in and try a few. The IF Archive (the IFComp, or annual competition, games are often a good starting point) or Baf's Guide to the IF Archive are good places to start. Have fun!

A Sample Transcript

DISCLAIMER: This is taken directly from The Moonlit Tower and is by no means an optimal beginning, if such things exist, but should give you some notion of the range of possibilities. Plain text is generated by the game; text in ALL CAPS at the command prompt (>) indicates what the player has typed in; comments in italics are included to give the player's rationale for the actions she took and would not normally appear in the course of the game (except in your head, perhaps).

moonlit chamber
Moonlight diffuses through the walls, tracing out unreadable sigils in calligraphies of light and dark. Stairs spiral downward, a dirge set in alabaster and marble.

You see a porcelain mask here.

>X MASK

Might as well start by looking at the room's most interesting feature. X is short for EXAMINE.

The half-mask is the pale, almost bluish color of the finest celadon, cracked with uncanny precision down its axis of symmetry. The face in its blank, sculpted features has no more personality than new-forged steel. Half a mask, though--that must mean the left half is--

>GET MASK

No reason not to take anything that isn't nailed down.

Taken.

So what else am I carrying around? I is short for INVENTORY.

You are carrying:
half a porcelain mask
armor and silks (worn)

>X ARMOR

Both armor and silks are in black and gold, night and sun, skins without sensation.

>TAKE OFF ARMOR

Wonder what's beneath that armor?

This would not be proper.

Looks like I won't be allowed to do that. Oh well.

>SING

I like trying random actions since there are occasionally stray bits of humor floating around, if nothing else.

A phrase of melody comes to you: an old court air.

Wow, that actually did something. I'll have to remember that.

>X SIGILS

A curious thing, tha the walls' stones should admit moonlight. A half moon, you think, from the level of illumination: a moment's memory suggests nights spent campaigning beneath an open sky, but is soon gone.

>UP

Hey, it's worth a try.

You are no magician to soar like the summer crane or the autumn hawk, and in any case the blue-painted rafters arch above you to a remote and unassailable peak.

That sounded pretty definitive. Let's see what else is in this place.

>DOWN

shadow armory
Shadows gather around you....

That's it for this transcript. If you're curious about what happens next, you'll have to check out The Moonlit Tower for yourself.