Kay: When you encounter someone who’s never heard of interactive fiction, how do you explain it to them?

Aaron Reed: It depends a lot on their age. For people that are 30 or younger, I can usually say it’s like a video game, but more textual (or something like that), whereas most people my age or younger are familiar with “choose your own adventure” books and I can use that as a starting point. For older people, I usually have to back up and say it’s like reading a book, but with the computer’s ability to let you influence the story. There’s definitely a generational shift between people who are comfortable with that concept and people who didn’t grow up with it, so they don’t have the same framework to deal with the idea.