What is a text adventure?
Text adventures are the oldest type of computer game, dating from a time before computers were powerful enough to handle graphical games. The whole atmosphere of a game is conjured up from words alone, and so playing a game is much like being part of a book in which you affect the story. For this reason, text adventure games are often referred to as interactive fiction (abbreviated as “IF”). This is perhaps a more accurate term than “text adventure”, because of course these types of games don’t have to be adventures – they could equally well be romances, or comedies, or anything you want them to be. It doesn’t even have to be fiction – you could use a text adventure game to simulate anything in real life! Of course, the days of computers which aren’t powerful enough to handle graphical games are long gone, but, just as a good book can affect the reader in a much more powerful way than a film or TV programme, so a good text adventure game can create a vivid universe that can be seen onl
