Thank you. I’ve actually had some success with some of the interpreters listed, so I’m encouraged.
I am wondering if some of the newer text games can be played with Z Machine Interpreters,
or is that only for Infocom games.
Yes - tons and tons! Older versions of the Inform programming language compiled to Z-code, so for many years, it was the biggest format for distributing games. (The latest version of Inform can still compile to Z-code, but it quickly runs out of space, so most Inform games now are released in Glulx format instead. But there are still hundreds of excellent Z-Machine games out there.)
Thanks, I was mainly interested in contemporary interactive fiction written after Infocom games, but ones that might still work on Z-machine interpreters.
Are there such text games?
The lists prevtenet linked will still work on Z-machine interpreters. If you want the earliest ones, you can start with Curses, which should still run on original Infocom interpreters without a problem.
Generally, if the file you’re downloading has the extension .z5, .z8, or .zblorb, it should work on a Z-machine interpreter. (I think.)
(time passes.)
I notice that release 2019.1 [ https://github.com/garglk/garglk/releases/tag/2019.1 ] mentions “the Gargoyle Glk implementation has seen some improvements … [including] Text-to-speech support”. I’m not sure how well this works.