What is a text adventure game?

A text adventure game is a game played mostly or entirely through text, where the story is described in words and you progress by making choices or typing commands. The earliest ones, like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork, used a parser: you typed instructions such as 'open door' and the game responded. Later text adventures often use clickable choices instead, which is friendlier for new players. The appeal is imagination over graphics, since the pictures form in your head, and the low production cost, since one writer can build a whole world with words. Text adventures overlap heavily with interactive fiction and choose your own adventure stories. You can play browser-based examples on the play page.