Miscellanous information, including backup copies of databases of various IF services
Note: For information about Infocom and their games see directory infocom/info, for Magnetic Scrolls see directory magnetic-scrolls/info, for beginners' guides see directory starters.
A directory containing old (1993–2010) download statistics for the IF Archive, starting from when the archive was housed at GMD.
SQL database dumps from the Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB)
XML database dumps of the IF Wiki
SQL database dumps from the Interactive Fiction Forum
The Adventure family tree, detailing all the known versions of Adventure, as constructed by Russell Dalenberg.
A WWW page describing all the versions of Adventure found here at the IF Archive, written by David Kinder.
Information about adventure games and the companies that made them, collected by Hans Persson. This is a text version of the author's Adventureland web site, at https://adventure.if-legends.org/. List created 06feb1999.
A list of adventure authoring systems, both commercial, free, and for in-house development, by Hans Persson. Last update: 10may94.
Every clue from the Apple II game Alkemstone (1981). The clues supposedly give the location (in the real world) of a hidden treasure. These images were extracted by Andy Boros, cross-referenced to internal data, so we know every clue is included.
A list of authors of IF games, together with email addresses (where known and permitted), revision 1.0 (01mar98), by John Francis.
Information about development systems for Interactive Fiction, by Nathan Torkington. Last update: 23nov94.
Whizzard's Guide to Text Adventure Authorship base document version 2.0 by Gerry Kevin Wilson.
Whizzard's Guide to Text Adventure Authorship supplement #1 (25may95) to version 2.0 by Gerry Kevin Wilson.
Whizzard's Guide to Text Adventure Authorship supplement #2 (25jun95) to version 2.0 by Gerry Kevin Wilson.
The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers, by James Hague; last updated 15 May 2001.
A note from Bernie Cosell on the origin of the original ADVENT game.
Colossal Cave Revisited, by Mel Park an article from TidBITS #229, 06jun94, about a re-release of the game on CD and the original cave the game is based on.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. PostScript version for A4 paper.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. Windows 3.1 Help format.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. PostScript version for US letter size paper.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. Newton book format, converted by Eric Brown.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. A4 PDF version using Type 1 fonts, converted by Nikos Chantziaras.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. Letter PDF version using Type 1 fonts, converted by Nikos Chantziaras.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. Graham's original TeX version.
The Craft of Adventure, Second Edition, Five Articles on the Design of Adventure Games, by Graham Nelson. Plain text version.
The first of a two part collection of game reviews, written by Quentin D. Thompson.
The second of a two part collection of game reviews, written by Quentin D. Thompson.
Jacob's Guide to Giving Constructive Feedback on IF, by Jacob Solomon Weinstein.
Adventurist's Guide Through Textual Adventures, Part I (for novices), by Vladimir Krstulja.
Manual for The Hound Of Shadow, by Eldritch Games, scanned into HTML format by Frederic Bassaler.
Interactive Fiction Bibliography (4/97), compiled by Stephen Granade.
Paul Gilbert's IF web page.
Archive of ifanswers.com, a Q&A site for Interactive Fiction which was live from March 2015 to October 2015, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 with attribution required.
A Non-Interactive List of Inform Games, by Neil James Brown. Based on a previous list by Brendon Wyber. Release 5 / 971015
The beginning of a compilation of information concerning multi-user adventure games, by Hans Persson. Last update: 17apr94.
Playing the Interactive Fiction Archive Games version 1.74 (March 2002), by Stephen Griffiths.
Playing the Interactive Fiction Archive Games, translated into Spanish. Version 1.72 (August 2001).
The Frequently Asked Questions of the newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction, plain text version, maintained by Stephen Griffiths.
The Frequently Asked Questions of the newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction, HTML version, maintained by Stephen Griffiths.
The Frequently Asked Questions of newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction, by Stephen van Egmond Last update: 31jan97.
Manual for Sherlock (the game released by Melbourne House, not the Infocom game of the same name), in HTML format with JPEG images. Scanned in by Jeremy A. Smith.
An article on Infocom and Inform text adventures on the Sinclair QL, written by Tim Swenson, from the magazine QL Today.
The Complete, Unofficial List of TADS Games v3.00 (jan93), by Alan Mead.
The (Other) TADS Game List, version 1.2 (20aug96), by Gerry Kevin Wilson and Paul David Doherty.
A Brief History of Interactive Fiction, a graphical timeline covering through 2000, by Misty and Stephen Granade.
A list of computer games related to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, by Fredrik Ekman (ver 1.8, nov95). This list is no longer maintained; it has been replaced by a set of web pages you can find at https://adventure.if-legends.org/
An archive of the now defunct wiki that was available at https://twinery.org/, taken on April 22, 2021.
An update to the ALAN information in whichsys.zip.
An update to the TADS information in whichsys.zip, by Neil K. Guy, 15oct98.
The "Which Authoring System Is Better" FAQ, revision 0.1, 20feb96, initial publication, a detailed discussion and comparison of 10 IF authoring systems (TADS, Inform, ALAN, Hugo, AGT, Archetype, GINAS, LADS, Gamescape, and Aventuro) by Bob Newell. This file contains the document in four formats: PostScript, TeX, DVI, and plain ASCII text.
The Z-Files, a Z-Code Catalog. Michael Baum's catalog of Z-Code games and programs, converted to a Windows HTML Help File by Paul de Valmency. This catalog stopped being current on 22 July 1999.
Detailed description of ZCatalog990722.zip
A catalog of all Z-Code games and programs, in HTML format. Written by Michael Baum, based on previous catalogs by Brendon Wyber, Neil Brown and Gunther Schmidl. Last updated 22 July 1999