In under the wire! In alphabetical order, games that have stuck with me and changed how I feel about what interactive fiction can do, in the medium and/or my own life:
17776 - Jon Bois
500 apocalypses - Phantom Williams
80 Days - inkle studios
Birdland - Brendan Patrick Hennessy
Blue Lacuna - Aaron Reed
Cape - Bruno Dias
Counterfeit Monkey - Emily Short
Fabricationist DeWit Remakes the World - Jedediah Berry
Galatea - Emily Short
Hadean Lands - Andrew Plotkin
Harmonia - Liza Daly
Her Story - Sam Barlow
Invisible Parties - Sam Kabo Ashwell
Laid Off From the Synesthesia Factory - Katherine Morayati
Lime Ergot - Caleb Wilson
Midnight. Swordfight - Chandler Groover
their angelical understanding - Porpentine Charity Heartscape
SPY INTRIGUE - furkle
Violet - Jeremy Freese
Will Not Let Me Go - Stephen Granade