A Beginner's Guide to Playing Interactive Fiction

Step 3: How do I play

The game starts

When you start a game, you will first see an introduction, usually consisting of one or a few screenfuls of text, giving you some background on who you are, where you are, and perhaps even what your objectives in the game are. Whenever the game has printed a screenful of text, it will wait until you press ENTER or some other key, so that you get a chance to read everything before it scrolls off the top of the screen.

How to interact

When the introduction is over, you will get a prompt, usually ">", but it may be a little different from game to game. The prompt means that the game is now waiting for you to tell it what you want to do. You do this by typing in imperative commands, as if you were commanding someone. Let's say the introduction told you that you are in a kitchen, and that you can see a closed glass jar standing on the kitchen counter. Commands you could try at this point include TAKE THE JAR, or OPEN THE JAR, or perhaps EXAMINE THE JAR (Throughout this document, things that are written in capital letters with an italic font are complete commands that can be typed into an IF game. They don't have to be typed in capital letters when entered into a game). If you want to, you can skip the articles: TAKE JAR will work just at well as TAKE THE JAR. If there are several different jars you could mean, the game may ask you which one you mean. Just type one or more words that uniquely identifies one of the items. For instance, if the game says "Which one do you mean, the blue glass jar or the green glass jar?", you might reply BLUE to take the blue one. You can also choose to ignore the question altogether, just typing a new command.

Movement

To go to another location, most games expect you to type in which direction you want to go. You can type GO SOUTH, but just SOUTH will also do the trick, as will S (which is the commonly accepted abbreviation for SOUTH). Other directions and their abbreviations are NORTH (N), EAST (E), WEST (W), NORTHEAST (NE), SOUTHEAST (SE), NORTHWEST (NW), SOUTHWEST (SW), UP (U), DOWN (D), IN and OUT. If you are aboard a ship of some kind you may also be able to use FORE, AFT, STARBOARD and PORT.

Other ways to move around may include commands like ENTER CAR, GO CAR, SIT ON MOTORCYCLE, GET ON BIKE, CLIMB ONTO SHIP, JUMP ONTO PLATFORM, DIVE INTO LAKE, BOARD SHIP, EXIT CAR, EXIT, LEAVE, GET OUT. Exactly which commands are recognized vary from game to game as well as from situation to situation in those games. When interacting with IF games, always try to express yourself as simply as possible. If you have tried several ways of expressing yourself and the game refuses to understand what you want to do, you are most probably on the wrong track; it's time to try something completely different.

Common verbs

As you know by now, you can use the verb TAKE to pick up items in the game. Of course, you can also use DROP to drop items. Most modern games actually recognize a hundred different verbs or more. With some of the most used verbs, you can also use multiple items, like this: TAKE GREEN BALL AND SCREWDRIVER or DROP ALL or PUT ALL BUT HAMMER IN BAG. You'll find that ALL is often a very useful word, although it only works with certain verbs, most notably TAKE and DROP. Here are some of the most important verbs, with examples:

Other verbs you will need from time to time include ATTACK, BUY, COVER, DRINK, EAT, FILL, JUMP, KISS, KNOCK, LISTEN, MOVE, PULL, PUSH, REMOVE, READ, SIT, SLEEP, STAND, THROW, TIE, TOUCH, TURN, TYPE, UNTIE, WEAR. There are lots more. Hopefully they will seem natural to you when you need them.

How time works

Almost all IF games count time in turns, rather than hours and minutes. Every time you type something and press ENTER, one turn passes. This also means that until you press ENTER, no time passes. You could think of a turn as being something like a minute, but how long it actually is depends on what you do during that turn. If you want time to pass, but don't want to perform any actions, just type WAIT or Z. This will prove useful while waiting for someone to arrive or something to get ready in the oven etc (in the game world, not in the real world!).

There are games that use real-time instead of turn-based play, but they are few and far between, and they will tell you about their real-time system at the beginning of the game.

Talking to people

The most useful ways of talking to people usually involve the verbs ASK and TELL. When using them, try to pin down the best keyword for what you are interested in, rather than longer constructs. For example, TELL BOB ABOUT HOW I SAW SHEILA GIVE A STRANGE AMULET TO ANOTHER WOMAN is not likely to yield any useful results, but TELL BOB ABOUT AMULET or perhaps TELL BOB ABOUT SHEILA may indeed be useful. In other words, you tell the game the subject you want to talk about or ask about, not exactly what to say. The game will try to make reasonable assumptions on what you want to say regarding the subject.

Also note that many games are quite primitive when it comes to modelling people. The author has to put in an enormous amount of work to make people in the game behave realistically and respond well to conversation. In general, don't expect too much from people in the game, but there are of course games that shine in this area too. You'll also see that some authors prefer menu-based conversation, to facilitate interaction.

To tell someone else to do something, type the name of the person, a comma, and then a command. Example: BOB, BREAK THE JAR. Just like in real life, most people won't automatically do something just because you tell them to. If you think Bob knows what to do with the jar, you can also try GIVE JAR TO BOB or SHOW JAR TO BOB.

Special verbs

All games recognize some verbs that don't do anything in the game world, but tells the game something about how you want it to behave, or some special task you want it to peform. These verbs include:

Getting stuck and unstuck

While playing IF, you will get stuck. This is part of the deal -- where there are puzzles, there will also be stuckness. If you grow tired of being stuck in the same spot for too long, you can either type HELP in the game to see if there are any hints available, or you can ask other players for hints. A good place to ask for hints is the newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction. That's also one of the best places to meet other IF players, discuss games you've played, get tips on games you should play and more.

Oh, one last thing about playing interactive fiction. Make a map as you play. You are very likely to need it.

It's now time to move on to Step 4: How do I download and run games