Text-based game

A game in which text is the primary means of presenting the world, conveying events, and receiving player input.

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Interactive fiction: Digital or print narratives in which a participant's choices shape the unfolding story. This broader form includes games that make narrative choice their central interaction.
Colossal Cave Adventure: A 1976 computer game by Will Crowther, later expanded by Don Woods, exploring a text-described cave system. Its command-driven exploration established a template for many early text adventures.
Will Crowther: An American programmer and caver who created the original Colossal Cave Adventure. His game drew on cave exploration and helped establish computer text adventure.
Role-playing game: A game in which players portray characters and make decisions within an imagined world. Text games often borrow character progression and world simulation from role-playing games.
Interactive storytelling: A form of narrative in which participant actions influence the story's events or presentation. Text games helped establish techniques now used across interactive media.
Parser: Software that analyzes typed input and converts it into commands a program can execute. Command-driven games use parsers to interpret natural-language or abbreviated instructions.
Zork: A series of fantasy adventure games that began as a mainframe program in the late 1970s. Its parser and richly described world became defining examples of the form.
Don Woods: A computer scientist who expanded Colossal Cave Adventure in 1977. His additions helped turn Crowther's cave program into a widely shared game.
Visual novel: A narrative game format that presents text alongside character art and often branching choices. It shares story-driven interaction but gives images a prominent presentation role.
Accessibility in video games: The design of games to make play possible for people with varied abilities and needs. Text interfaces can work with screen readers, though accessibility depends on their design.