Varicella is a programme designed for the reader to master their way through several different rooms and locations in the hopes of finding secret codes to unlock the ending. It is a confusing and complicated interactive fiction that often leaves the reader frustrated. The point of the adventure, although it unleashes the imagination and allows it to create its own path, expects the reader to accomplish an almost impossible task. Using commands, such as north, south, east and west, to navigate your way around the different areas, you soon discover there is much more to this game than meets the eye.

After reading numerous amounts of cheat web sites, it becomes clear that there are many more levels to this game. You reach the tower in search of the secret codes; you command the game to open the secret compartment in the drawers. It is unclear how the person playing the game is meant to know of this secret compartment. If it was not for the cheats, the person playing would be left walking around for hours trying to find something that is almost impossible to find. Although the narrative is, to a large extent, very inviting and allows the readers imagination to go wild, the fact that the reader does not know all their options and where the game is able to go - like the secret compartment - questions to what extent the reader is in control of the game or if the game is in control of the reader.

Because the game holds a certain extent of power over the reader, this has an influence over the way the reader chooses to go because of their lack of knowledge and understanding.