How can I create a text based game like Zork in PHP?

Question

I'm interested in creating a text-based game similar to Zork. The source code doesn't give away much, it's clear that the text input is submitted by php using the post method and the page is reloaded.

Where should I start?

Answer 1

Those text adventure games are based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine

PHP probably just serves as access channel to the game runtime, maybe using a pipe.