FAQ
The ifwiki Interactive Fiction FAQ was created to offer succinct, up-to-date information to those who are new to IF or new to the IF community. The FAQ is intended to give brief, helpful answers to those questions that do actually come up frequently, and to direct readers to the most important online resources. While it is meant to be a useful part of ifwiki and to have current, useful links, this FAQ also should serve well as a stand-alone document that someone might read offline or print out. Another resource for newcomers that is helpful (although it hasn't been updated recently) is Roger Firth's Ifaq.
What is "interactive fiction"?
The term refers to programs (sometimes called "games" or, less often, "works") that let you type commands to a character. This character wanders around in a simulated world of some sort, usually one that is described in text. "Text adventure" and "text game" have been used to mean pretty much the same thing. Examples include Adventure, Zork, Deadline, Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Hobbit, and Curses. Some people include graphical adventure games such as Myst when they use the term, but those sorts of games aren't the focus of this FAQ, nor are they the main concern of the IF community. The ifwiki offers a formal definition of interactive fiction; there is a longer discussion of the topic in the rec.arts.int-fiction FAQ; and other definitions can be found in various essays and books.