A Beginner's Guide to Playing Interactive Fiction

Appendix A: Glossary

IF 
Short for Interactive Fiction.

Interactive Fiction 
Fictious stories where the reader can make choices which affect the story. This makes the reader a player. This site deals with computer based interactive fiction, which communicates with the player primarily through text. There is also computer-based interactive fiction which interacts with the player primarily through graphics, and paper-based interactive fiction, such as "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

NPC 
Non-Player Character - people and animals the player can meet in a game.

PC 
Player Character - the person whose part the player plays in the game. There are also "Multiple PC" games, games where the player can play more than one of the characters in the story.

Text Adventure 
This is another term for text-based interactive fiction games. Some like to make the distinction that text adventures are more on the game side, while interactive fiction games rely heavily on the story telling. Others claim that the distinction is just a matter of snobbery.

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