Interested in getting into one of Star's many hobbies, interactive fiction (or text-based gaming, as some n00bs call it)? Here's a pack of four books that will tell you practically everything you need to get started. Second Person: Role Playing & Story in Games and Playable Media , edited by Pat Harrigan and Norah Wardrip-Fruim, is a collection of essays by game designers, authors, artists, and scholars about role playing and story in various types of games, from RPGs to card games to electronic literature. Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction by Nick Montfort is an analysis of IF from both gaming and literary perspectives, and looks at the history of the medium and current techniques used to create it. Once you've got the theory down, it's time to get building: The Inform Designer's Manual by Graham Nelson and The Inform Beginner's Guide by Roger Firth & Sonja Kesserich should provide all the information you need to start working with Inform, the most popular program for creating interactive fiction.