West

West is a direction. It is one of the four cardinal directions, and one of the eight compass directions. Its opposite direction is east.

West is associated with the left edge of a map; most maps are meant to be read with the north-end up. If you are facing north, then west is to your left.

West of House, the initial location of Zork, may be the best known room in interactive fiction. Several subsequent works of IF included homages of the location.

Note: A "western" genre game refers to games set in America's western frontier, also called the "Wild West", when it was first being explored and colonized; see Category:Western.

The WEST command

Typing WEST means GO WEST or WALK WEST. That is, direct the player character westward from their current location. Assuming there's an exit in that direction and nothing is blocking or hindering the character, the PC will travel west to an adjacent location.

WEST is such a common command that it has an abbreviation: W.

West in other languages

Dutch	west	w
English	west	w
Esperanto	okcidenten	w, ok¹
French	ouest	o
German	Westen	w
Italian	ovest	o
Spanish	oeste	o
Swedish	väster	v

¹ Esperanto's words for west and east are okcidento and oriento, which means it's problematic to use o as an abbreviation for either of them. One might then decide on ok and or respectively, but ok isn't ideal because that's the Esperanto word for "eight". One might borrow the English w for west, but it's also not ideal since Esperanto's alphabet doesn't include the letter W. There aren't enough Esperanto IF games to see any clear concensus. Still, typing either w or ok has to be better than typing in okcidenten.

Code Compare

Directions like WEST tend to be implemented both as room properties and as objects in their own right. The WEST command, however, tends to be parsed or reinterpreted as a GO command acting on the west object.

Code Compare: West
ADRIFT 4:	Move West to Bedroom
Inform 6:	The w_to property and w_obj object
Inform 7:	The west direction
TADS 3:	The west link property, the westDirection object, and the defaultWestWall object