Editing Interactive fiction (section)

====Commercial era====
[[Adventure International]] was founded by [[Scott Adams (game designer)|Scott Adams]] (not to be confused with the creator of [[Dilbert]]). In 1978, Adams wrote ''[[Adventureland (video game)|Adventureland]]'', which was loosely patterned after the (original) ''Colossal Cave Adventure''. He took out a small ad in a computer magazine in order to promote and sell ''Adventureland'', thus creating the first commercial adventure game. In 1979 he founded Adventure International, the first commercial publisher of interactive fiction. That same year, ''[[Dog Star Adventure]]'' was published in [[source code]] form in ''[[SoftSide]]'', spawning legions of similar games in [[BASIC]].

The largest company producing works of interactive fiction was [[Infocom]],<ref name="dm4-46">{{cite web | author = Graham Nelson | date = July 2001 | url = http://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/html/s46.html | title = A short history of interactive fiction | work = The Inform Designer's Manual | access-date = 1 November 2006 |url-status=live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070827050426/http://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/html/s46.html | archive-date = 27 August 2007 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> which created the ''[[Zork]]'' series and many other titles, among them ''[[Trinity (video game)|Trinity]]'', ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game)|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' and ''[[A Mind Forever Voyaging]]''.

In June 1977, [[Marc Blank]], Bruce K. Daniels, [[Tim Anderson (Zork)|Tim Anderson]], and [[Dave Lebling]] began writing the mainframe version of ''Zork'' (also known as ''Dungeon''), at the [[MIT Laboratory for Computer Science]]. The game was programmed in a computer language called [[MDL programming language|MDL]], a variant of [[LISP programming language|LISP]].

The term Implementer was the self-given name of the creators of the text adventure series Zork. It is for this reason that game designers and programmers can be referred to as an [[Implementer (video games)|implementer]], often shortened to "Imp", rather than a writer.

In early 1979, the game was completed. Ten members of the ''MIT Dynamics Modelling Group'' went on to join [[Infocom]] when it was incorporated later that year.

In order to make its games as portable as possible, Infocom developed the [[Z-machine (interpreter)|Z-machine]], a custom [[virtual machine]] that could be implemented on a large number of platforms, and took standardized "story files" as input.

In a non-technical sense, Infocom was responsible for developing the interactive style that would be emulated by many later interpreters. The Infocom [[parser]] was widely regarded as the best of its era. It accepted complex, complete sentence commands like "put the blue book on the writing desk" at a time when most of its competitors parsers were restricted to simple two word verb-noun combinations such as "put book". The parser was actively upgraded with new features like undo and error correction, and later games would 'understand' multiple sentence input: 'pick up the gem and put it in my bag. take the newspaper clipping out of my bag then burn it with the book of matches'.

Several companies offered optional commercial [[feelie]]s (physical props associated with a game). The tradition of 'feelies' (and the term itself) is believed to have originated with ''[[Deadline (1982 video game)|Deadline]]'' (1982), the third Infocom title after ''Zork I'' and ''II''.<ref>{{cite web | author = Allen Varney | date = 9 December 2006 | url = http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_62/365-Feelies | work = The Escapist, Issue #64 | title = Feelies | access-date = 10 July 2009 |url-status=live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071012153126/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_62/365-Feelies | archive-date = 12 October 2007 | df = dmy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite newsgroup | title = FAQ 2/3: (2.3) How did Infocom make those neat packages? | author = Stephen van Egmond | date = 17 April 2004 | newsgroup = rec.games.int-fiction | url = http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/interactive-fiction/part2/ | access-date = 7 October 2009 |url-status=live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090918154157/http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/interactive-fiction/part2/ | archive-date = 18 September 2009 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> When writing this game, it was not possible to include all of the information in the limited (80KB) disk space, so Infocom created the first feelies for this game; extra items that gave more information than could be included within the digital game itself. These included police interviews, the coroner's findings, letters, crime scene evidence and photos of the murder scene.

These materials were very difficult for others to copy or otherwise reproduce, and many included information that was essential to completing the game. Seeing the potential benefits of both aiding game-play immersion and providing a measure of creative copy-protection, in addition to acting as a deterrent to software piracy, Infocom and later other companies began creating feelies for numerous titles. In 1987, Infocom released a special version of the first three ''Zork'' titles together with plot-specific coins and other trinkets.<ref>{{cite web|author=Peter Scheyen |year=1987 |url=http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/Tslspr87.html#ztrilogy |title=Genuine Zorkmid coin minted for the Zork Trilogy |access-date=10 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060616010715/http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/Tslspr87.html |archive-date=16 June 2006 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | author = Robin Lionheart | year = 2009 | url = http://quendor.robinlionheart.com/zorkmid/ | title = The Zorkmid Project | access-date = 10 July 2009 |url-status=live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090411143847/http://quendor.robinlionheart.com/zorkmid/ | archive-date = 11 April 2009 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> This concept would be expanded as time went on, such that later game feelies would contain passwords, coded instructions, page numbers, or other information that would be required to successfully complete the game.