An Overview
Interactive fiction is a story in which you are the main
character. Your own thinking and imagination determine
the actions of that character and guide the story from
start to finish.
Each work of Infocom's interactive fiction, such as
STARCROSS, presents you with a series of locations,
items, characters and events. You can interact with these
in a variety of ways.
To move from place to place, type the direction you
want to go. When you begin your adventure, it's a good
idea to become familiar with your surroundings by
exploring every location and reading each description
carefully. (You may notice that STARCROSS occasionally
refers to a location as a „room“ even if you are
outdoors.) As you explore the alien ship, you should make
a map of the geography. | An important element of interactive fiction is puzzle-solving. You should think of a locked door or a ferocious
beast not as a permanent obstacle, but merely as a puzzle
to be tackled. Solving puzzles will frequently involve
bringing a certain item with you and then using it in the
proper way.
In STARCROSS, time passes only in response to your
input. You might imagine a clock that ticks once for each
sentence you type, and the story progresses only at each
tick. Nothing happens until you type a sentence and press
the RETURN (or ENTER) key, so you can plan your
turns as slowly and carefully as you want.
To measure your progress, STARCROSS keeps track
of your score. You'll get points for solving puzzles,
acquiring treasures, performing certain actions and
visiting certain locations. There's also a penalty for
getting „killed.“ |
