“Interactive fiction tells you the beginning of a story. Then it puts you in charge and lets you decide what your character should do.

You type commands for the main character to carry out, and the story replies by telling you what happens next.”.

“If you enjoy interactive fiction, you’ll find a wide variety of other works available to you.

And, like books, works of interactive fiction come in assortment of genres: fantasy, mystery, horror, and science-fiction, romance and historical, surreal and slice-of-life.
See my PDF Manual on playing IF.”.
(Emily Short)