Interactive Fiction (n):
(1) A somewhat pretentious term for text adventure games,
originally used by Infocom about their products, nowadays
mostly in use among the self-appointed elite of
rec.arts.int-fiction, to
give a (presumably) more high-brow flavour to text based games, as opposed to
the graphic ones preferred by basically everybody else. This usage is
constantly confused with
(2) Any kind of written fiction with interactive elements, usually used
about hypertext documents where the reader can select different storylines
by choosing different links. The devotees of Interactive Fiction in this second
sense tend to be puzzled by sense (1), considering the application of the
term "fiction" to mere games a contradiction in terms.
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