You haven't been over since she told you a month ago that she was moving to some small town in Wisconsin. But Riley is here, and the computer is here, and that's what matters for now. "Have you played the game yet?"

"You told me to wait to play it with you about a billion times," she says.

A work of interactive fiction by B.J. Best.

And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One

Six bees. Five bags of groceries. A four-pound dumbbell. Three sailboats. One twin.

Sting is a puzzleless parser memoir about ordinary days and unexpected interruptions.

Sting

"Magic comes with a price. But on your birthday, all your expenses are paid. Welcome to Grooverland."

Grooverland is a large parser game that takes over two hours to complete. It is based on the works of author and programmer Chandler Groover, although it does not require previous knowledge of his games to play.

Grooverland

In a world of arcane mysteries, a young doctor's apprentice unravels a conspiracy most grim.

The Weight of a Soul is a mystery-horror interactive novel inspired by IF classics like Blue Lacuna and Anchorhead.

The Weight of a Soul

An account of the disastrous sidewalk chalk tournament of August 27, 2011.

A Rope of Chalk

Four cardboard boxes stacked in the centre of a bare office. You can't leave til they're all unpacked, and there's an awful lot to unpack here, including emotional baggage, academic misconduct, and a blood feud spanning centuries.

Academic Pursuits (As Opposed to Regular Pursuits)

Isaac Newton receives a mysterious letter inviting him to investigate a new scientific phenomenon.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The only thing worse than being a village idiot is being an unemployed village idiot. Maybe it’s time to change careers. Maybe it’s time to be a knight.

Stuff of Legend

A millionaire guards a fabulous ruby in her private train car. Countless thieves have failed to steal it. But they weren't the Magpie!

The Magpie Takes the Train

The memoir of a demonic spy in the Cold War between Heaven and Hell.

Vain Empires

The first Taleframe game based on the 90s children's horror soap opera.

Crocodracula: The Beginning

It's been over a year since you were last home, and now it's time to finally clear out those last few things, and the memories they bring back.

Moving On

The black gate at the east end of the schoolyard is closed, locked. The After School Program does not relinquish its warriors willingly.

Here is where the mud is thinnest on the ground, and in some places the painted lines of the kickball diamond are visible.

A text adventure by Ryan Veeder.

Mud Warriors

An interactive fiction about perfume, memory and new meanings, with heavy use of procedural generation.

Scents & Semiosis

With a loud "click," the door closes behind you. Finally! You are locked inside an antebellum Southern mansion, alone, wearing only a chicken costume. You've fantasized about this moment for years.

Sugarlawn is a timed treasure hunt game where the goal is to collect as much cash as possible via the valuables you pick up.

Sugarlawn

Relax at the Jewel Pond Recreation Area with Ryan Veeder as your guide.

Ryan Veeder's Authentic Fly Fishing

Cragne Manor is an 'exquisite corpse' text adventure commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Michael Gentry's Anchorhead, in which each of its 84 rooms was created by a different author.

Cragne Manor

Sir Rodney Playfair, gentleman thief, has a simple plan: impersonate a psychiatrist, infiltrate a country house, steal a priceless Egyptian scarab and make it back to London in time for cocktails. All in a day's work for the illustrious 'Magpie'.

Alias 'The Magpie'

Junior Arithmancer

"Dancing with Fear" (1958, directed by Víctor Ojuel). In this forgotten classic of Golden Age Hollywood, a vedette fallen on hard times (Salomé Vélez) finds herself enmeshed in a tangle of political intrigue, romance and betrayal in a Caribbean republic. Torn between her love for a smuggler, the lust of a corrupt policeman and the machinations of a Soviet intelligence operative, the protagonist navigates the dangers of a high-society party on the eve of revolution. As she tries to survive through that fateful night, the memories of her past will come to haunt her. Controversial at the time for its depiction of Cold War politics and morally ambiguous protagonist. (120 minutes, Technicolor, in-game hint system).

1958: Dancing with Fear

In this castle, you'll eat or be eaten. May contain dairy, carnage, puzzles, nuts.

Eat Me

Left/Right is a short, experimental parser-based text adventure about fate, created for The 2017 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction.

Left/Right

An accurate recounting of recent kitten-related events.

Don't Eat the Cactus

You are battle-weary. Your armor is scanty and your countenance is loathsome; you tire of the swords flicking at your neck. But you have a duty. There is nothing you can't take.

A game written by Katherine Morayati (as Amelia Pinnolla) for the 2016 Interactive Fiction Competition.

Take

As the most famous self-published Science Fiction author residing in Hillview, you are eminently qualified to judge their annual Elementary School Science Fair.

Fair

Your friend Mike thinks no one can infiltrate THE FACILITY, but you're going to prove him wrong. A game written by Arthur DiBianca for the Annual Interactive Fiction Competition.

Inside the Facility

Your mirror never lies. A game written by Chandler Groover for the 2016 Interactive Fiction Competition.

Mirror and Queen

Worldsmith is an exciting, immersive text game. Type in commands and explore the World, solve puzzles, talk to people and play the Game of Worlds. In Worldsmith, you control the story.

With over 150,000 words of text, Worldsmith is a full, novel length, Interactive Fable.

As you explore the world of the Septem Tower, you will create solar systems and Life, unearth ancient mysteries, and discover the secrets behind the Tower and its billion year mission.

Worldsmith is an Interactive Fable and is part novel, part adventure, part puzzle and part strategy game.

Worldsmith

You, Mary Jane Minsky, have a few things to clear up with your best friend Jenny Yoshida. When your robotic birthday gift doesn't go over as planned, you may need to reset your expectations, for her and yourself.

The Mary Jane of Tomorrow

Someone's been bopping the field mice on the head, and only Good Fairy, Senior Detective can find out who. A parser-driven noir adventure based on the interactive fiction of Ryan Veeder.

Foo Foo

A piece of interactive fiction written by Chandler Groover, where you play the magician Morgan the Magnificent.

Three-Card Trick

Ply the spaceways. Make five million credits. Buy back your twin. A space sim in the form of interactive fiction, written by C.E.J. Pacian.

Superluminal Vagrant Twin

What Fuwa Bansaku Found

The last two officers of a tropical colonial outpost wait for evacuation.

Lime Ergot

Open That Vein is a Parser-based horror text adventure and a La Petite Mort entry in ECTOCOMP 2015.

Open That Vein

You burnt some toast, which set off your smoke alarm and called the fire department. If there's not a fire when they arrive, you can expect a hefty fine.

5 Minutes to Burn Something!

A game written by Steph Cherrywell for the 21st Annual Interactive Fiction Competition.

Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!

Final Exam takes place in the near future after an AI revolution has led to the establishment of a new sort of government. You are seeking a job within this government: your performance in the “final exam” determines the outcome. You wake up on the day of your exam to find that your world has unexpectedly changed. You leave your room to seek answers, and find the Administration Centre deserted... 
 
A game written by Jack Whitham for the 21st Annual Interactive Fiction Competition.

Final Exam

A puzzle game about secrets in the Age of Lead. You've spent seventeen years preparing for an infiltration. Stealing the Confessor's secrets is only the beginning: it will all be for nothing if you leave a trace.

Sub Rosa

You are starting your IT internship. The details you got from the university are scarce: just the address and the date (today).

Byod

If you’ve never played interactive fiction before, or have poked at a few games but didn’t feel like you really knew what you were doing, start here.

A short text adventure guided towards helping newcomers to the genre understand the rules and nature of IF.

Tutorial

A murder most foul has been committed and Sherlock Holmes is on the case. You are his dog.

Toby's Nose

A story of mild and non-debilitating obsession.

The Ascent of the Gothic Tower

Eyes can see, and a mind can think. Insanity is just one step away. You are in a room. That's where you are, and you know exactly what is going on. But the truth is hard to take.

Enigma

Ultimate Quest: Journey to the Far Side of Possible is an interactive tweet-based text adventure by internationally renowned interactive fiction author Emily Short and featuring illustrations by Silvio Aebischer.

Ultimate Quest: Journey to the Far Side of Possible

An interactive tale of strange conspiracy.

Pull up your hood, lower your gaze and enter the city of Zendon. If you can gather enough information, you may just be able to change the course of history.

(Weird City Interloper is a shallow but broad conversation game.)

Weird City Interloper

You should carry the bag. I'm more of a delegator.

A work of interactive fiction by Ryan Veeder.

Captain Verdeterre's Plunder

Stolen away by apathetic Blind Ones, your only desire is to return to your Cellarium and the Song of the Universe. They should understand. You shall make them to understand. 
 
A piece of interactive fiction written by Lynnea Glasser.

Coloratura

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children." - Jimmy Carter

A piece of Interactive Fiction written by Carolyn VanEseltine.

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

High school journalists spend the night in a church, investigating reports of a ghost.

A piece of interactive fiction written by Ryan Veeder and Emily Boegheim.

Robin & Orchid

Castle of the Red Prince is a small text adventure with a different perspective on how locations can work in a parser game.

Castle of the Red Prince

Interactive Fiction created by Andrew Plotkin as fanfic of the xkcd comic "Click and Drag".

Bigger Than You Think

You play Tony, a fourteen-year old thief who needs some help looting the legendary Oakville Manor. Luckily it’s the 1980s and finding fellow adventurers is just a modem squeal away…

Guilded Youth

You are a yet another brave adventurer set upon the quest to slay the mighty dragon that is threatening the village! Following the questing traditon, you decide to start your search for the dragon in the local tavern! What makes this quest different? It takes place on the worldz best BBS! hehehe!!! 
 
A piece of interactive fiction by Adam Cadre.

Endless, Nameless

You play as Alice Armstrong, the new Professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland, even though you've never heard of "muggles" before and never knew magic was real until the headmaster proved it to you. But when you arrive at the school, you discover that a botched spell has made everyone disappear and you're now trapped within the castle. Is this something you can fix without magic?

A work of interactive fan fiction by Flourish Klink.

Muggle Studies

You've had a long day. All you want to do is climb into bed. But why is your pillow quivering like that?

I Found a New Friend is a short text adventure in the style of the old Infocom games. It is based loosely on the They Might Be Giants song of the same name.

I Found a New Friend

Your friend has invited you over for stew. He has not bothered to procure most of the ingredients.

You've Got a Stew Going!

Interactive Fiction created by Andrew Plotkin, about fairy tales. Part of a metapuzzle in the 2011 IFComp.

Cold Iron

Kerkerkruip is a short-form roguelike in the interactive fiction medium, featuring meaningful tactical and strategic depth, innovative game play, zero grinding, and a sword & sorcery setting that does not rehash tired clichés.

Kerkerkruip

It's the last day of summer, and you're old enough now to go into town by yourself.

Last Day of Summer

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.

PataNoir

Playing Games is a short fantasy game about an trial of initiation in a semi-secret club.

Playing Games

You are in your car, with a gun in your pocket, going back and forth with yourself about whether you should get moving immediately, or take some time to think about your situation. Some of the wording, and the fact that the game is subtitled "an interactive heist", make it not unreasonable to infer that you are gearing up for a robbery. A piece of interactive fiction written by Ryan Veeder.

Taco Fiction

Your vision clears as you gently land in an endless landscape. There is the wind, a bleak and chill thing. And there is your sense of uncertainty: You don't know which way to go. Or, maybe, which way you went.

The Life and Deaths of Doctor M

The Fish of Māui. The Land of the Long Cloud. Aotearoa. An entire continent of untamed wilds, and the last place on Earth where dinosaurs still roam. If only you'd come ashore under better circumstances...

A piece of interactive fiction written by Matt Wigdahl.

Aotearoa

They all stare at you expectantly, like children waiting to be told a bedtime story. Who can blame them? You are, after all, Antoine Saint Germain, the great French detective. No criminal has ever been a match for you, and everybody is looking forward to a description of your brilliant deductions.

There is just one small problem. One tiny detail that makes it different this time. A mere trifle, really. This time you have no idea who did it.

Death off the Cuff

It figures that your pickup would die on a night like this and leave you stranded in the dark New Mexico desert. But nothing else figures about this night, man. Nothing at all.

An example game for Aaron A. Reed's book Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7.

Sand-dancer

Heliopause is interactive fiction — a classic text adventure. No graphics! No point-and-click! You type your commands, and read what happens next.

Hoist Sail for the Heliopause and Home

Interactive Fiction created by Andrew Plotkin, where the objective is to escape a virtual room.

Dual Transform

A blurb? They expect you to write? You're Lottie Plum so you're not going into writing. You sing. And dance and act up a storm while everyone else can only manage a puddle. You belong at Bridger. No matter what it takes.

Broken Legs

Your task is simple enough. Just nab the chalice.

Byzantine Perspective

A game about a tea party, a monarchy, and the unpredictability of language.

Earl Grey

Alabaster is an experiment in open authorship: a piece of interactive fiction with conversation text contributed by a number of different authors in response to an introduction written by the project's organizer, Emily Short.

Alabaster

The call comes through. Of all the dicks; you get the call, sitting in the front seat of your car, hands shaking on the steering wheel. An urgent call; but all you were thinking of was the bottle in the liquor store and so that's where you went first. 
 
Now you're pulled up outside the house. The rear mirror's showing two steely eyes. You adjust your hat, stiffen up your collar and grab your badge off the dash. Here goes. You've one last chance so... MAKE IT GOOD

Make It Good

Tomorrow is the big Teddy Bear party, and you must definitely not let your owner forget about it...

A Bear's Night Out

Walking away from a picnic, you are suddenly caught in a country storm. You must protect a bridge from being destroyed.

A game by Andrew Plotkin he describes as his "first serious work of interactive fiction".

A Change in the Weather

You're a writer, trying to turn a blank page into a story. Start with the setting. Should the story take place in Scotland? Io? Tied to a kite? Somewhere completely imaginary? Or maybe you shouldn't start with the setting?

A Dark and Stormy Entry

A country house mystery with a randomized culprit.

An Act of Murder

In this wonderfully laconic spoof of the Scott Adams style of adventures, you play as Jason of the Argo, tasked by King Pelias to bring the Golden Fleece to him or die.

ASCII and the Argonauts

A piece of interactive fiction written by J. Robinson Wheeler, featuring IF luminary Andrew Plotkin in a parody of the movie Being John Malkovich.

Being Andrew Plotkin

A mysterious death, a secret to be revealed… and someone who wants to know the truth, at any cost.

Beyond

A surrealist piece of interactive fiction by Chris Klimas about a man who is offered a hallucinatory drug at a party.

Blue Chairs

This is where I end and you begin. That, at least, is what I want to think. I don’t know you. Perhaps one day I will. But this Implementation-rather, its copies-are my seeds blowing to the wind. The palm-parsers, their oak gears whirring, will be pressed into hands long after I finish this. Hands like yours.

A metatextual work of interactive fiction by Anya Johanna DeNiro.

Deadline Enchanter

Missing employees, wily crustaceans, malfunctioning kitchen equipment and a terminal food shortage, all on the night the most important culinary critic in the world has chosen to review your debut restaurant? Surely there's nowhere to go but up.

Gourmet

Interactive Fiction created by Andrew Plotkin being a fusion between a game and a programming tutorial.

Lists and Lists

I wake peacefully, and already she is there. My angel - she is all around me. Her presence is like ice on water. But she is less than peaceful. My thoughts are all of raging storm clouds. Hurriedly, I drag myself up.

A work of interactive fiction by Jon Ingold.

My Angel

On the Night of the Comet, the usual astrological bonds do not hold, and the order of the universe is threatened. It is a time made for rebels and usurpers, and all who would claim the kingdom for themselves.

You are a member of the Order of the Phoenix, a protector of the hierarchy and the kingdom itself. It is your duty to attend the royal ball, watch for dangers... and do whatever needs to be done.

A piece of Interactive Fiction written by Emily Short.

Pytho's Mask

It's been a hectic year, and it's time to get away. He told you that, and you agreed. Now you're here, in a grove of aspen, and long for a good, long bath in the nearby hot spring.

She's Got a Thing for a Spring

A darkly comedic adventure of "interactive damage-control" following the exploits of wealthy socialite Julia Hawthorne through a country club.

Sting of the Wasp

A game about a young man in costume who goes about a ball stealing kisses from young women.

Tale of the Kissing Bandit

It is a symbol and a tool. It is your past and your future. It is all things, in time. You, Timothy Hunter, have lived, and like all things mortal you have died. But the aftermath of that lifetime is anything but simple...

Faced with creatures beyond your ken, the fruition of whose inscrutable motives hinge on your decisions, what will you do? Will you face who and what you once were? Or will you try to change things for the better? Or the worse?

Tapestry

Fantasy Interactive Fiction created by Andrew Plotkin, as both a game and an introduction to the genre.

The Dreamhold

An exploration of a hike to the Mt. Cammerer Fire Tower in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Fire Tower

No, not a prison, though stone stands around you, as expressionless as a mirror awaiting face and form; and in the silence you hear no plaint of flute or roar of gong, but instead the crash of porcelain shattering.

A work of interactive fiction by Yoon Ha Lee.

The Moonlit Tower

An interactive fiction adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy The Tempest in which the player guides the spirit Ariel. The text and descriptions are lifted from the original work, i.e. in Early Modern English.

The Tempest

Sweetheart. Buttercup. Sugar. Baby. Babe? Babe?

For as long as you can remember, you've never really had a name--never needed one. For 22 years people have swaddled you in epithets, letting you know that even though you're not quite on the right track, the world is there to hold your hand. Your father, your friends, your boyfriend. Gas station attendants.

Sweetie, do you know what you're doing there?

Truth be told, it's never really mattered to you before. Sometimes you've even liked it. Not today, though. Today something is wrong.

Tough Beans

Varkana is the name of a region in a world with a timeless, mildy fantasy/sci-fi setting (some technological and magical elements are present at this moment, but not prevalent), with the city-state of Arg Varkana as its major outpost of civilization. There are several Persian and Mesopotamian inspired elements in there, some of which might sound familiar to those who are acquaintanced with those cultures.

We start the game as Farahnaaz, a bookcrafter and a library employee in Arg Varkana, currently enjoying her summer holidays when the town is lively with celebrations. Her hometown is to be visited by a team of ambassadors from Ashtarta, a distant, fabled land with a more advanced technology and a recently-reestablished regime.

Varkana

Manhattan, May, 1954.

The last few years, you've settled into a routine. You work at the bank, you go home, you occasionally have dinner with your mother. It is all acceptably ordinary.

One day a strange creature crosses your path, and disrupts the schedule entirely.

A work of interactive fiction by Emily Short.

When in Rome 1: Accounting for Taste

Can you help one hungry bulldog in his quest to find something good to eat? He would like that. A lot.

Snack Time!

Calm down. All you have to do is write a thousand words and everything will be fine. And you have all day, except it's already noon. A piece of interactive fiction written by Jeremy Freese.

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