While digital text may never completely replace the conventional novel, new media is definitely having an increasing influence on the way that stories are being narrated in modern society. New media like hypertext and Interactive Fiction encourage its readers to explore texts rather than just reading them in a conventional linear manner. Interactive Fiction for example is a form of digital text which requires the reader/player to contribute to the way in which the story develops and help determine its outcome. Unlike video games where a joystick is used to control the actions of the player’s character and move them from scene to scene, IFs (interactive fictions) rely on the reader/player controlling the movements of their character by reading and relaying instructions though text. An example of this type of inter-active fiction is Varicella.

In Varicella the reader/player is expected to interpret the text while operating the computer programme that controls the game. It is up to the reader/player to solve the puzzle contained in the main plot of the story/game by becoming the character Primo Varicella, Palace Minister at the Palazza del Piermonte, the homodiegetic narrator of the work. By giving instructions to Varicella in the form of written text the reader/player explores the Palace gaining the information and equipment required for the completion of .the tasks, set out in the introductory text However, solving the puzzle proves to be only part of this game's intrigue since in order to complete Varicella’s mission the reader/player must word the instructions given in a way that the games programme recognises. If the instruction given are not worded correctly the reader/player is told either that ‘that sentence was not understood’ or ‘that is either not in the immediate area, or is beneath your concern.’ Therefore, while the game itself has less than a hundred moves the text will often need to be read, re-read and typed, several times before the puzzle is solved and the game won.