Cubes and Ladders

Interactive fiction tells you the beginning of a story and then leaves it up to you to decide what your character should do next. You issue commands to your character, and the story responds by telling you what happens.

This particular story takes place in the corporate office of Minimax, a struggling electronics company. Your character is a new employee who is about to be called on to explore the office, meet interesting people, and solve puzzles. Your role is to guide the character and make decisions. There are multiple story endings possible. You can win the game by solving all the puzzles, or you could end up fired, or even dead.

Instructions For Play

This story understands common verbs as well as the names of objects that appear in the story.

Most of what you type will have the pattern: ACTION OBJECT. Where ACTION is the verb, and OBJECT is a noun to which it applies. Depending on the action, adding a phrase with a second object may be appropriate: Put the donut on the table, for instance.

Start by familiarizing yourself with the environment. Each time you enter a room you’ll read a description of your surroundings. Be thorough and examine everything mentioned. It might give you important clues for later. To examine objects or people in the room:

> examine phone

> x self


Moving around is as simple as typing the direction you want to go. Use compass directions like east, west, north, south, southwest, etc. Or you can also abbreviate e, w, n, s, etc. Typing up or down also works if those directions are available. You can also “walk to” a room, but only if you’ve visited there before.

> go east

> walk to Gallery


Using objects is accomplished with verb + noun combinations. The most common verbs you’ll need are simple ones like take, drop, put, and examine. Once you take a few objects you can review what you are carrying by typing INVENTORY, or just i for short. You can do more with objects than just collect them. Some can be worn, eaten, opened, unlocked, etc. Devices can be turned on and off too.


You should also examine any characters you meet for more clues about them. You can also interact with them by asking questions or giving them objects.

> x Mary

> Ask Mary about her cat

> show cookie to Mary

You can restart the game by typing restart. There is no way to undo moves or save your progress. 


If you need your character to wait for a period of time type wait until 1:45 PM, and the time will pass until that time is reached. You can see the current story time and room name in the banner of the page. You could also type advance time to 1:45 PM if you prefer.


You will need a pen and paper to take notes and map the rooms you discover as you explore the game. This will make it easier for you to retrace your steps when needed.

If you need a hint, try typing hint commands, or hint character, where character is the name of the character in the story. For example, "hint boss" will tell you about the boss character and some topics you might ask her about.