Being a programming rather than a gaming geek, I'd be quite interested in how much (and how) Inform does this behind the scenes -- do you have any useful links?

Wow, this is fascinating! I made a room containing a pan of peas boiling over last night. It only took me, like, half an hour. And what a fascinating adventure that was. I lack the nostalgic "this is real gaming man" attitude some people to have to text based adventures, I think possibly because I'm rubbish at them and always end up not knowing what to do with the grubby cooks or how to get Ford Prefect to give you the bag of peanuts. I know they give an impression of infinite freedom but all I ever seem to run up again is infinite restriction.

Kyra - I should have included links in the article. Here's a link to Photopia, which you might enjoy, or you might find just as frustrating and limiting as all the other text games you've ever played. :P

http://adamcadre.ac/photopia.html

You'll want the third thing on that list.

Rami - I'm not sure if the info you're looking for exactly is available anywhere on the web, but probably the best place to start looking is here:

http://inform-fiction.org/I7/Download - Documents.html

Especially that thing labelled "Natural Language, Semantic Analysis and Interactive Fiction". If you were to send Graham a clear and interesting question by email, there's also a half-decent chance he'd send you an answer.

Thanks Guy - I hadn't seen that page when browsing the site before! I'll certainly have a look and might even get involved with creating an I7 version for Linux - it sounds very, very cool!

Hey Rami - no worries. If someone were to create a Linux version, that would be very cool indeed. :)

I've read some Adam Cadre - his short stories on his website and his book 'Ready Okay!'. I loved his book, read it in one sitting. I never played his IF, though, because I was utterly confused by *how* to play an IF.

Pft, no HTML. Sux0rz.

Yup, sorry, for security-paranoia reasons there's no HTML in comments.

Hey Cassie - if you download that thing I directed Kyra to, and run it, my guess it you'll have it worked out in a matter of minutes. Failing that, if you run into trouble, say where you're stuck and I'll unstick you.