I remember Return of the Ober Din being featured on Gamemaker’s Toolkit, but I wasn’t aware it spawned a “-like” genre.
I think it can definitely work as long as you don’t just move a regular novel or short story into Twine and put some random flair to it. I would utilize the strengths of the medium like visuals and audio and keep the prose tight.
Edit: Also, different ways to interact with the text can create different experiences. For example, highlighting text on a dark page to find a hidden snippet makes me feel like there’s light in the darkness. That fits stories about hope. Searching for the correct link among fake ones creates a sense of being lost or not knowing what to do. These are just some examples that came to mind, hopefully they’re helpful.
I’m slowly playing through the Higurashi series (with fan patches) and it’s a real VN classic - series of full games without a single choice¹. There are downsides to this but the games really control their pacing and presentation. And there is still place for keeping notes because you might want to spin some theories before reading further.
¹The fan patch does add the side stories and some choices of the “instant failure” variety after the 4th game.
Not exactly the same mechanics, but I’d recommend The Painscreek Killings.
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