What Is Interactive Fiction? Interactive Fiction, or the Text Adventure game, is the name given to a form of media that strides the spectrum between literature and computer simulation. Although Interactive Fiction may incorporate sound and graphics, the basic medium is text. And while hyperlinks, menus, and mouse pointers may be employed, the basic user interface is the player command parser, which translates basic player commands into story actions. The earliest Interactive Fiction was the textual simulation Advent, which took the player on a surprisingly accurate tour through the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. The simulation was embellished over time to incorporate dungeon and dragon elements, as well as puzzles. So the adventure game was born, and had its commercial hay-day in the ‘80s and ‘90s with such companies as Level 9, Scott Adams, and Infocom. It continues to flourish to this day in non-commercial form on the internet. The puzzle aspect of the interaction has many variations and degrees of integration into the fictional elements of the story, and indeed there are Interactive Fiction consisting more of puzzle than story. In the mid ‘90s a shift in emphasis from “game” to “story” took place as the next generation of Interactive Fiction authors began to experiment with puzzleless and non-linear stories. Much of modern Interactive Fiction incorporates sophisticated command parsing, model world simulation, and dynamic actor interaction that strives to balance story immersion and interactivity.