I recently came across the PC Gamer 2015 Best Games of All Time and noticed that the game Spider and Web made it on the list. I can’t remember any other time a parser made it on one of these published lists for computer games in general. This made me think, what are the top 10 IF games of all time?
3 Likes
IFDB allows you to go off on this subject for hours!
9 Likes
I guess I hit on one of these “frequently asked questions.”
2 Likes
4 Likes
Depends on what you define as ‘best’ (reviews/popularity? Or impact/influence on IF?), and also IF (just text or VNs too?). IFDB does not have the entirety of the IF scene listed, and this forum represents a relatively small community. Some IFs on itch have thousands of reviews, and so does COG.
If you survey the casual IF community, you’ll get different results than IFDB, which has more parser veterans than elsewhere.
I think.
4 Likes
To add to @Ordon ‘s point, that doesn’t even stray out of the English speaking sphere. There are numerous IF traditions with either entirely unique or unexpectedly convoluted origins compared to the history of IF in English. Even those that started in the same place often evolved differently. Who’s to say the best IF was even written in English?
2 Likes
Yup, case in point: Japan, the home of VNs. Most works will likely never see the light of English. Dedicated fan translators often localise obscure works.
Also, forgot to mention Steam/VNDB, which have mainstream VNs with hundreds of thousands / millions of players. Some VNs have cult followings.
1 Like