The Interactive Fiction Archive

“The northern ‘wall’ of the room is a shimmering curtain of light. In the center of the room is a large stone cube, about 10 feet on a side. Engraved on the side of the cube is some lettering.” -- Zork 2

Introduction

The Archive’s mission is to preserve the history and practice of interactive fiction and make it freely available to the public. Since 1992, the Archive has collected thousands of text adventures, text adventure development tools, articles, essays, hint files, walkthroughs, jokes, and sly references to Greek politics. It also preserves the history of IF institutions such as the IF Competition and IFDB. This cultural memory is one of the foundations of the IF community.

Mirrors of the Archive, including ftp and gopher access points, are listed here. (We do not guarantee these mirrors are up to date, however.)

As of mid-2017, the Archive is managed by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation. It is funded by the donations of IF supporters like you.

(Speaking of donations, November 2017 was the Archive's 25th anniversary! You can buy Archive swag at the IFTF Gift Shop.)

The Archive was founded by Volker Blasius. Its organization and the indexing of its contents is largely the work of David Kinder, Doug Orleans, and Andrew Plotkin.

Read more about the Archive and the volunteers who maintain it.