Oh! Can I retroactively add Suspended? I don’t know how I overlooked it…
I’m late! I’m late! But I’d like to submit the following top-of-my-head list.
Worlds Apart (Suzanne Britton)
Trinity (Infocom)
Wonderland (Magnetic Scrolls)
Galatea (Emily Short)
Hadean Lands (Andrew Plotkin)
Black Crown (Rob Sherman)
Black Crown is sadly no longer available to play, as it was an online Storynexus game, but an archive of its content can be found via https://bonfiredog.itch.io/the-black-crown-project
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Thanks everyone! I’m officially closing voting as of NOW.
Wow, blast from the past. Black Crown was an interesting project, but I can’t help but wonder if it the aesthetic of that particular story’s content (unrelenting suffocation and ‘disease/contagion’ horror) might have been just the wrong thing as a first effort to show investors and new players what the platform was capable of. I know people loved it but some of the descriptions of gnarly illness and suffocation put me off a bit, and I usually have no problem with any kind of prose-horror writing. Perhaps that’s what made it so effective.
Weird trivia on Scorpion Swamp (that’s sort of relevant for making this kind of list): the game is not by Steve Jackson (UK) but Steve Jackson (US), who is famous for Ogre and GURPS.
Yes, Steve Jackson ghostwrote for Steve Jackson.
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Not deliberate ghostwriting, though … just more a case of “we’ll not make a lot of noise about this being a different Steve because our Steve’s name currently carries a noticeable bit of sales impact.” Steve (US) still openly mentioned Monica Stephens, etc.
To add trivia to the trivia, Steve (US) later wrote an informative little article on structuring gamebooks/solos in a word processor, using Scorpion Swamp as his core example.
Wait… there are two different Steve Jacksons? 
Yep - British Steve Jackson who co-wrote the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and founded Games Workshop, and American Steve Jackson who founded Steve Jackson Games and made GURPS, Illuminati, Munchkin, and others
I already sent Victor my list by email, but I also discuss it publicly here: https://babbagefiles.xyz/intfic-top-50-2019/
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It did have a very claustrophobic sensation to it, which definitely appealed to my aesthetic preferences at the time but perhaps wasn’t THE most approachable thing for general audiences. As a software preservationist, I am really sad and rather cross that there wasn’t a proper plan for sunsetting the game.
I was at the press launch and Sherman showed us the physical precursor to the online game, which was a suitcase full of objects with associated narratives, IIRC.
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this is actually mentioned in the postmortem, if i remember correctly – he thanks his academic adviser in his literary grad program, and recounts for the audience the times they traveled on the tube with a bright red suitcase emblazoned with a biohazard symbol, and all the looks they got from fellow tubegoers.
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I remember multiple stories with the suitcase-artifact example. In fact, that sounds a whole lot like something you might see from The Mysterious Package Company.
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You all got me wishing I had played it when I had the chance.
While we’re waxing nostalgic, here’s a preview I wrote of it just before release. (Pls ignore deadname)
I really put the boot in on the microtransaction system, which I’d actually entirely forgotten.
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As a new member, I can’t include more than two links.
So let’s divide my top 20 in two.
Games listed on the Visual Novel Database:
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Gyakuten Saiban 3; but you definitely should read the first two games in the series before you get started with the third. All three games are excellent, it’s just the third happens to be my favorite. You play as a defense attorney.
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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni; horror mystery at its finest.
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Saya no Uta; disturbing, touching, and intriguing. Contains a few sexual scenes you can choose not to see.
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Narcissu
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Fault Milestone One; its sequel is very much recommended as well.
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Cerulean
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[redacted] Life
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That Cheap and Sacred Thing
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Tsukihime
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Monster Girl Quest; a surprisingly fun take on the visual novel and RPG formulae. Lots of NSFW scenes, but I think their graphical representation can be disabled.
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Sage Fusion; a visual novel, point-and-click adventure and roleplaying game hybrid. Its world feels alive.
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Romance Detective
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The Elevator
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The Dandelion Girl
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Lucid9
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Aloners
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Katawa Shoujo
Games listed on the Interactive Fiction Database:
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Kerkerkruip; a game that deliciously combines the two genres of videogames I’m the most fond of: interactive fiction and roguelikes.
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Hansel et Gretel — La Revanche; a French work of choice-based IF with neat prose, immersive atmosphere (music and sound effects contribute a great deal to it), clever exploratory phases, and entertaining tactical gameplay.
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Will Not Let Me Go
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It’ll be fun to see this run this again next year, if you’re up to it.
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I am totally planning to!
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