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You’ve started a text adventure/work of interactive fiction, and by that I mean: one with an Infocom-or-better-style natural language parser. And nothing you try works, because you really haven’t a clue how the game’s/story’s world model works or what sort of syntax it expects from your input.
So let's just recklessly breeze through it in a jiff.
Most commands follow a VERB, VERB OBJECT, or VERB OBJECT PREPOSITION OBJECT syntax. These are not chatterbots; if they don’t understand what you’re going on about, they’ll actually say so instead of faking it with some related-sounded misspelled blather from a database.
VERBs are simply imperative verbs like GET, GO, INSERT, PUSH, UNLOCK, READ, THROW, LISTEN, ASK...
Note that a VERB can be two words: PICK UP or TURN ON, for example, have their own built-in prepositions.
A note on USE: It is, as a rule, not done. You'll have to know in advance what you want to use something FOR:
An OBJECT is perhaps better referred to as a noun phrase; it, too, can be more than one word. Examples of valid OBJECTS:
(Articles are generally optional. Pronouns will usually refer to the last thing the player mentioned.)
Multiple objects can be referred to with numbers, commas, AND, ALL/EVERYTHING, EXCEPT/BUT, or “filtered” tacking on FROM <CONTAINER>:
The standard TADS 3 parser (games in the `.t3` executable format) can deal with quite a bit more than that:
This will be necessary exactly never. But it’s kinda neat! Right?
You can fire off multiple commands in one input using THEN or full stops:
If the game doesn’t quite (but not not at all) know what you’re talking about, it’ll ask for clarification. This is called “disambiguating”. YOU CAN ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS; they’re not just error messages.
Example:
Which do you mean, the red apple or the green apple?
> THE GREEN ONE
(GREEN alone would have sufficed, too, but I like using words.)
Note that you can always repeat the description of your current situation/location by issuing the LOOK AROUND, LOOK (or just L) command.
Some games support an EXITS command that’ll show you valid directions of travel.
Some games support LOOK <DIRECTION>, e.g. LOOK NORTH or LOOK DOWN.
LISTEN and SMELL and, less often, TOUCH and TASTE, can be useful as well (but often aren’t).
The ‘usual’ way to get from one place to another is via compass directions, IN/ENTER, OUT/EXIT/LEAVE, and UP/DOWN. These all work as verbs and can usually be abbreviated as well, so N works fine as GO NORTH and U as GO UP.
Some games support a GO TO <NAME OF KNOWN LOCATION> command.
Hand-drawing a map with notes scribbled all over was traditionally part of the experience; Diagram editors can also be used for the purpose and there's a handy web application for it called “Trizbort”.
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│ │ ╱
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╱ 🮐🮐🮐↓🮐🮐🮐─▏ ▕
🭽▔▔▔▔▔🭾 🮐🮐dark🮐 🭼▁▁▁▁▁🭿
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Trizbort, the Interactive Fiction mapper
Compass directions might continue to work but get mapped to the orientation of the ship instead; otherwise, try these:
FORE
PORT BOW ↑ STARBOARD BOW
╲│╱
PORT ←──┼──→ STARBOARD
╱│╲
PORT QUARTER ↓ STARBOARD QUARTER
AFT
(The diagonal directions are less likely to be implemented.)
Whatever’s listed separately after a room description can usually be TAKEn and probably should be, too (that’s just how we roll).
Objects mentioned embedded in the room description itself can and often need to be interacted with as well; they just tend to be fixed in place.
INSPECT/EXAMINE/LOOK AT (or X/L AT) everything to find out more. No usable item in a reasonably modern text adventure will be “You see nothing special.”
SMELL, LISTEN TO, TASTE, TOUCH may yield something useful or at least interesting on occasion.
The game contains rooms which contain objects, some of which can contain further objects, usually IN or ON them but you never know.
This is modelled somewhat deeper than in graphical adventure games in that objects can be placed inside objects inside objects inside objects as long as there’s space whereas most more ‘advanced’ games will simply spew out a list of object contents for the taking but offer little further interaction with the container itself.
The player character and NPCs are likewise objects and can contain further objects in their inventories; type TAKE INVENTORY or INVENTORY or just I to check what you’re carrying and wearing.
There’re many custom conversation systems but the most conventional one is typically referred to as ASK/TELL.
SAYing or YELLing (etc.) literal phrases can work:
Commands can be directed at another character, and sometimes that works:
The Trinity manual lying next to me also suggests these:
But I imagine they are different ways to ASK <CHARACTER> ABOUT <SOMETHING>.
Detective-type games might however have deeper interrogation options. Such and other conversation systems deviating from these conventions are most likely explained in-game (try HELP) or in the documentation, or they’re purely menu driven and self-explanatory.
GIVE and SHOW should at the very least be understood:
Then there’re HUG, KISS, HIT/ATTACK <WHOMEVER> WITH <WHATNOT>, and so forth. (One I’ve never tried: TAUNT.)