Table of Contents -- Introduction: Why Interactive Fiction? -- Chapter 1 Understanding Interactive Fiction -- Blue Lacuna: An IF Excerpt -- How to Play Interactive Fiction -- Finding and Installing an IF Interpreter -- Finding Stories to Play -- Playing IF -- The Nature of Interactive Fiction -- Story v. Game -- Solving Puzzles -- What IF Does Well -- What's Harder with IF -- Length -- Sand-dancer: The Example Game -- The Concept Document -- What It Will Teach Us -- Chapter 2 Introducing the Inform Application -- Installing Inform -- Installing for Windows -- Installing for Mac -- Installing for Linux -- Getting Started -- The Facing Pages -- Using the Built-In Documentation -- Extensions -- Resources for Learning More -- The Inform Website -- The Interactive Fiction Community Forum -- IFDB -- Planet IF -- IFWiki -- Chapter 3 Creating a Story World -- Building the Foundations: Rooms and Directions -- The Room -- Linking Rooms Together -- Regions -- Structuring Your Source Text -- Spacing and Ordering -- Headings -- Using "It" -- Comments -- Making Things -- What Are Things? -- Articles -- Properties -- Positioning -- Holding and Wearing -- Supporters -- Containers -- Custom Kinds and Properties -- Creating New Kinds -- Default Properties for New Kinds -- Making Your Own Properties -- Relating Things to Each Other -- Defining Relations -- Relation Verbs -- Tools -- The Index Panel: World -- The TREE Testing Command -- Chapter 4 Describing the Story World -- The Description Property -- Descriptions for Rooms -- Text Substitutions and Getting BENT -- Descriptions for Things -- Backdrops -- More Descriptive Tools -- Initial Appearance -- More Text Substitutions -- Conditional Descriptions -- Conditions -- Defining New Adjectives -- Using Definitions -- Using Conditions -- Describing Sand-dancer -- Filling in Detail -- Keeping Things Organized.

Extensions for Controlling Description -- Extensions for Describing Rooms -- Extensions for Describing Things -- Chapter 5 Making Things Happen -- Rules and Actions -- The Basis of Rules -- Actions -- Action Rulebooks -- Action Default Rulebooks -- Action Exception Rulebooks -- Making Action Rules More General -- Action Rules in Sand-dancer -- The Duct Tape -- The Emergency Blanket -- Debugging Actions and Rules -- The Index Panel: "Actions" Tab -- ACTIONS -- RULES -- Making More Things Happen -- Light and Dark -- Navigation Restrictions -- The Roof -- Chapter 6 Understanding the Player -- Understanding Synonyms -- Synonyms for Nouns -- Printed Name -- Synonyms for Verbs -- Understanding Less -- Creating New Actions -- Creation -- Definition -- Modifying Existing Actions -- Adding New Action Default Rules -- Replacing and Removing Rules -- Other Ways of Understanding -- Understand as a Mistake -- Understanding Things by Their Properties -- Disambiguation -- Dangers of Disambiguation -- Does the Player Mean -- Avoiding Ambiguity -- Helping the Player Participate -- Using Words Deliberately -- Extensions to Assist the Player -- Back to Sand-dancer -- The ABSTRACT Testing Command -- The Memories -- Finding Food -- Sniffing Out Some Fuel -- Chapter 7 Logic and Control -- Logic -- Conditions -- Variables -- Variable Basics -- Custom Kinds of Variables -- Phrases -- Named Phrases -- Phrases to Decide -- Deciding If -- Phrases with Variable Inputs -- Lists -- Creating List Variables -- Using Lists -- Repeating Through Lists -- Numbers and Randomness -- Numbers -- Kinds of Numbers -- Comparing Numbers -- Sand-dancer's Radio -- Math -- Randomness -- The Kinds Index and Phrasebook -- The Kinds Index -- The Phrasebook -- Expanding Sand-dancer -- Reaching the Desert -- Describing the Desert -- Chapter 8 Time, Scenes, and Pacing -- Story Structure.

Structure in Traditional Narrative -- Structure in Interactive Stories -- Structure in Inform Stories -- How Inform Sees Time -- Turns -- Remembering Past Events -- Remembering Past and Present Actions -- Future Events -- Scenes -- Creating a Scene -- Pursuit: Tracking the Rabbit -- Incorporating Scenes into Your Narrative -- What Scenes Can't Do -- Testing Scenes -- Temptation: Tracking the Coyote -- Extensions for Time and Pace Control -- Chapter 9 Creating Characters -- Defining Interactive Characters -- All of You -- All of Them -- Making a Character -- The Person -- Actions Done to People -- Actions Done by People -- People with Plans -- Orders -- Extensions for People -- Conversation: Three Systems -- ASK/TELL -- Conversation Framework by Eric Eve -- Threaded Conversation by Emily Short -- Other Conversation Systems -- Sand-dancer's Characters -- Setup -- Trading -- The Rabbit -- The Coyote -- Chapter 10 Challenging Assumptions -- Basic Changes -- The Command Prompt -- Status Line -- Directions -- Plural Things -- Games in Different Languages -- Use Options -- Activities -- Activity Rulebooks -- Some Useful Activities -- Room Descriptions -- Changing Library Messages -- Rules and Rulebooks -- A Review of Rules -- The Rules Index -- Scope and Reachability -- Changing the Style of Play -- Filling in the Corners of Sand-dancer -- The Voice on the Radio -- More Radio Conversations -- Sand-dancer's Arrival -- Chapter 11 Finishing -- Adding the Polish -- Review the Concept Document -- Sand-dancer Himself -- Verify Your Story Is Completable -- Adding Candy -- Rewriting -- Testing and Debugging -- Playing Like a Tester -- Review of Testing Commands -- Creating Test Scripts -- Debugging with showme -- Sections Not for Release -- Useful Debugging Extensions -- Debugging Strategy -- Using the Skein and Transcript -- The Skein -- The Transcript.

Outside Testing -- Finding Testers -- Working with Testers -- Signposting -- Debugging Sand-dancer -- Releasing -- Format -- Bibliographic Info -- Releasing With -- Interpreters -- Where to Find an Audience -- Chapter 12 Further Pursuits -- After Release: What Next? -- Fixing Bugs -- Adding Features -- Archiving Your Project -- Advanced Inform 7: A Brief Overview -- Indexed Text -- Tables -- Styled Text -- Beyond Text -- Creating Adventure Game Tropes -- Score -- Locks and Keys -- Carrying Capacity and Holdalls -- Unusual Map Connections -- Boxed Quotations -- Third-Party Tools -- FyreVM -- Guncho -- Inform 6 -- Some More Useful Extensions -- More Resources -- Stories with Source Text -- Our Website -- Other Books -- Is Sand-dancer Done? -- Appendix A: A Thought Experiment -- Appendix B: Interactive Fictions Cited -- Glossary -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.