While commercial
interactive fiction pretty much died with
Legend Entertainment's turn to populist gaming, free interactive fiction had never been in a better condition. A proliferation of IF authoring systems, the most notable of which are
Inform which builds on
Infocom's original
Z-code language and
TADS, attracts a crowd of old fans of the genre and a newer generation of highly-literate gamers, many of which are interested in trying their hand at a unique and imaginative form of gaming that's also the last one that allows an individual to create their own game.
In result, dozens of interactive fiction games are written by such hobbyists and are given away, the crushing majority of which are available for free download at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/, the net's biggest archive of interactive fiction. The archive also contains copies of electronic fanzines, authoring systems and the interpreters needed to play most of these games.
Additionally, a contest is held every year that calls for fans' best works and results in many gaming gems and some of the best adventuring you'll ever do on a computer.