Playing

Written Realms Alpha is a platform for interactive-fiction games: text adventures that you play in a web browser. You read what is happening, then respond by typing commands or selecting actions in the augmented interface.

Each world has its own setting, story, rooms, creatures, items, and rules. The guides in this section explain the interface and the platform systems that worlds can share. When a rule is optional or configurable, the guide calls that out.

Start here

If this is your first text adventure, follow these pages in order:

1. Your First Ten Minutes — enter a world, read the screen, and try a few commands.
2. Interface and Commands — learn desktop, mobile, keyboard, and accessibility controls.
3. Exploring and Interacting — move between rooms, inspect the world, and target things by keyword.
4. Your Character — understand vitals, classes, skills, feats, and progression.
5. Combat and Survival — start and finish a fight, flee, loot, recover, and understand death.

Already know what you need? Open the Player Command Reference or type help in the game.

Getting into a world

Select Play on the Written Realms Alpha homepage to try the guided introduction without first creating an account. The introduction teaches a short sequence of basic interactions. Creating an account lets you keep characters and explore the worlds available through Worlds.

From a world’s lobby, you can read its description and see whether it is single-player or multiplayer. Depending on the world, character creation may ask for a name, gender, faction, and class. Narrative or classless worlds may offer a different set of choices, and some worlds do not use combat at all.

Tip

The documentation does not assume that you completed the introduction. Your First Ten Minutes is designed to work as a standalone orientation or refresher.

Single-player and multiplayer worlds

In a single-player world, your active copy of the world is separate from other players’ sessions. In a multiplayer world, connected characters can meet, communicate, follow one another, and form groups. Worlds may also provide private instances for a group or individual.

The commands used to explore and interact are largely the same. Multiplayer adds the systems described in Playing Together and Communication and Safety.

A few useful terms

Term	Meaning
World	A game created on the Written Realms Alpha platform.
Builder	An author or administrator of a particular world.
Character	The person you play inside a world. One account can have characters in multiple worlds.
Room	Your current location. A room contains its description, exits, characters, items, and possible actions.
Zone	A collection of related rooms inside a world.
Mob or NPC	A world-controlled character, such as a creature, merchant, or quest giver.
Exit	A connection from one room to another, usually in a compass direction.
Instance	A separate temporary copy of part of a multiplayer world.
Core faction	A character’s broad allegiance, which can affect language, communication, and PvP.
Clan	A player-run group inside a multiplayer world. It is separate from a temporary adventuring group.

Questions about a world

The builder controls that world’s story and any custom rules. You can identify connected builders in the output of who and ask them world-specific questions. For community help, feedback, and bug reports, join the Written Realms Alpha Discord.