How to Play Text Adventure Games

The short version

A text adventure describes a place. You type what you want to do. The game tells you what happens. That loop is the whole genre. If you remember only one thing, remember this: type EXAMINE on every noun the game mentions. Ninety percent of being "good" at interactive fiction is simply looking closer than the description invites you to.

Step by step, your first ten minutes

1. Read the opening text slowly. Every noun is a lead. Authors do not mention a cracked photo frame by accident.
2. Type LOOK. It reprints the room. Free orientation, always safe.
3. Examine everything named. X BED. X WINDOW. X CLOCK. Descriptions often reveal new nouns, which you then examine in turn.
4. Take what you can. TAKE KEY. Then check I for inventory. Carried objects are your verbs later on.
5. Find the exits. Try N, S, E, W, UP, DOWN, OUT. Note which ones the game refuses — a locked exit is a puzzle announcing itself.
6. Combine. UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY. USE CROWBAR ON HATCH. Most bottlenecks are one object meeting one obstacle.
7. Save before anything irreversible. And sketch a rough map — rooms as boxes, exits as lines. It takes thirty seconds and saves half an hour.

The commands that work almost everywhere

Parser games vs. choice games

There are two families. In a parser game you type free-form commands, as above. In a choice-based game you click one of several offered options. Parser games reward curiosity and experimentation; choice games read more like a branching novel. Both count as interactive fiction, and plenty of modern titles blend the two. If you are new, a parser game with a small, tightly authored map — a single house rather than a sprawling dungeon — is the gentlest way in. See the beginner's guide to text based adventure games for the longer history.

When you get stuck

• Simplify your phrasing. Parsers want VERB NOUN, not "I would like to carefully pry open the cabinet".
• Use the game's own words. If it printed "a tarnished locket", type X LOCKET — not X NECKLACE.
• Re-examine what changed. Rooms are not static. After an event, LOOK again; the description may have shifted.
• Check your inventory. The solution is usually already in your pocket.
• Walk the map. Revisit every room with fresh objects in hand.
• "You can't do that" is information. A custom refusal means the author anticipated you — you are near something. A generic refusal means you are on the wrong track entirely.

Where to practise

Start with something you can finish in one sitting. PARANOID runs straight in the browser on Mac, PC, iOS or Android — no download, no account — and its map is one suburban house, which makes it a forgiving place to learn the parser while an actual mystery tightens around you. From there, the classics: Zork for the historical shock, and the wider catalogue covered in our guide to mystery text adventures.

Frequently asked questions