Ninja II by Paul Allen Panks
Unironically, although I’d probably have to write a short essay to express why.
(I’ll probably circle back around and add more to this post before the September 3rd deadline.)
Edited to add the other 19:
Her
Taco Fiction
AMFV
En Garde
Space Quest II
I Am Prey
Lady Thalia and the Seraskier Sapphires
The Gostak
According to Cain
The Thick Table Tavern
Portopia
Endless, Nameless
The Fire Tower
Seedship
The Bones of Rosalinda
9:05
Pageant
The Baker of Shireton
Sweetpea
Thanks Pinkunz. If you do, please send me a message, so I can make sure the final version is enclosed in the spreadsheet!
Boy, you‘re right! 20! I was so excited adding games to the list … 
fixed it …
80 Days
Counterfeit Monkey
The Impossible Bottle
Plasmorphosis
Tristam Island
What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed
Hadean Lands
Drift Mine Satellite
Plasmorphosis
Actually, you’re so right @CrocMiam. I need to add that to my list as well.
Here’s a short alphabetical list of my favorites:
In no particular order, some favorites that have stood the test of time for me:
Anchorhead
Many years ago, I had two college classes back-to-back in the same building, leaving me with a fifteen-minute gap. That particular day, I spent it playing Anchorhead. Class #2 came and went, and I walked out of the building - and was genuinely surprised to discover that it was sunny. Fifteen minutes of Anchorhead had left such an impression on me that I fully expected it to be windy and raining.
My praise for Anchorhead is not unreserved; it’s very dark for my taste, the NPCs are weakly implemented, the map can be confusing, and some puzzles rub me the wrong way (both in design and theme). But whenever I think about the craft of atmosphere and pacing in IF, my mind returns to Anchorhead as the definitive masterclass.
City of Secrets
A comparatively forgotten game, it seems, but one of my personal favorites. After your train stops unexpectedly mid-route, you are left to explore a fantastical open-world city, interacting with numerous NPCs and slowly uncovering more of the city’s dark magical underbelly.
It’s not perfect: the pacing doesn’t always work; the conversation system (a menu/keyword hybrid first used in Pytho’s Mask) has many strong points, but is sometimes confusing; and parts of the map are implemented more deeply than others. A few times, I was left wandering around trying to trigger an event without really knowing what I was supposed to be doing. But for me, this is one of the few games that has ever come close to what my “ideal” IF would be: big, open-world, richly implemented, beautifully written, philosophically interesting, heavy on atmosphere and worldbuilding, somewhat lighter on puzzles, beginner-friendly, visually polished, shipped with fun feelies, loaded with realistic NPCs and conversation. Overall, an excellent game from a master of the craft at the top of her game.
Savoir-Faire
If City of Secrets nails my ideal of an open-world puzzle-lite game, Savoir-Faire nails my ideal of an “old-school” puzzlefest. A rock-solid game built around a fun core mechanic and positively oozing with style and atmosphere. (I also quixotically appreciate that it’s a Z-code game, making it suitable for many retro systems.)
Counterfeit Monkey
What more to say about this? To my mind, the definitive wordplay game, melding a cohesive set of brilliant mechanics with a hefty dollop of comedy, worldbuilding, and story. My only complaint is that the tight puzzle design can leave the game world feeling a bit empty.
Curses!
I include Curses! not just because it was influential (although it was), but because I still do genuinely enjoy it as one of the best puzzle games of its type and era. Tested and polished to a mirror finish over its many versions, I still find clever new responses I never knew existed, and Nelson’s voice and wit permeating the game remains a delight.
Mulldoon Legacy
If Curses kickstarted the 1990s golden age of hobbyist Infocom-style puzzlers, then Mulldoon Legacy feels like its apex, drawing on a trove of lessons learned over the previous decade while including more “new-school” affordances like making it impossible to get permanently stuck without warning. It’s also absolutely huge, with examples of just about every kind of puzzle invented up until that point.
Hadean Lands
In my mind, the definitive “new-school” puzzlefest. An enormously complex game - in concept, design, and technical execution - but exceptionally well-done, with all the modern comforts players have come to expect.
Photopia
Another classic game I include not just because it was influential (although it was), but because I still do genuinely like it. A beautiful, layered piece of writing that could only have been executed interactively.
Plundered Hearts
New to my 2023 list, but I’ve increasingly come to think of this as Infocom’s best game, particularly for how deftly it manages the problem of having character development and compelling NPCs without having the technical resources to actually, you know, implement those NPCs in any meaningful way. The typical Infocom caveats apply for modern players, but there are a lot of great design lessons still to be drawn from it.
I haven’t played much new IF in a while, so this comes with a reverse recency bias. In alphabetical order:
80 Days by Meg Jayanth and Jon Ingold
A Mind Forever Voyaging by Steve Meretzky
Anchorhead by Michael Gentry
Counterfeit Monkey by Emily Short
Fallen London by Failbetter Games
Four in One by J. Robinson Wheeler
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Steve Meretzky and Douglas Adams
The King of Shreds and Patches by Jimmy Maher
their angelical understanding by Porpentine
Here are the games that are often on my mind, in no particular order:
Summit by Phantom Williams
500 Apocalypses by Phantom Williams
The Fire Tower by Jacqueline A. Lott
Master of the Land by Pseudavid
Lime Ergot by Caleb Wilson (as Rust Blight)
Computerfriend by Kit Riemer
howling dogs by Porpentine
With Those We Love Alive by Porpentine and Brenda Neotenomie
Queers In Love at the End of the World by Anna Anthropy
Beautiful Dreamer by S. Woodson
The Space Under the Window by Andrew Plotkin
Cactus Blue Motel by Astrid Dalmady
Birdland by Brendan Patrick Hennessy
Harmonia by Liza Daly
A Mind Forever Voyaging by Steve Meretzky (still working my way through this one–so that I can read and appreciate Drew’s essays–but really, really enjoying it)
The Garden of Verging Paths by Quinn Spence
Shade by Andrew Plotkin
One Way Ticket by Vitalii Blinov (I noticed that not all IFDB reviewers made it to the end of the game. I know it can feel like a bit of a slog, but I do recommend playing till the end :).
If you’ve been carefully trying to craft the perfect list, hesitate no longer and just post what you have: the deadline is September 3, which is fast approaching!
Been trying to write a good post about these but haven’t had the time or energy. In alphabetical order:
4x4 Archipelago (Agnieszka Trzaska)
Adventurer’s Consumer Guide (Øyvind Thorsby)
A Beauty Cold and Austere (Mike Spivey)
Bronze (Emily Short)
Child’s Play (Stephen Granade)
DEVOTIONALIA (G.C Baccaris)
Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
Excalibur (J.J. Guest, G.C. Baccaris, Duncan Bowsman)
The Game Formerly Known as Hidden Nazi Mode (Victor Gijsbers)
Lime Ergot (Caleb Wilson)
Night Guard / Morning Star (Astrid Dalmady)
Out (Viktor Sobol)
A Paradox Between Worlds (Autumn Chen)
A Rope of Chalk (Ryan Veeder)
silences (beams)
Spider and Web (Andrew Plotkin)
Threediopolis (Andrew Schultz)
Turandot (Victor Gijsbers)
Will Not Let Me Go (Stephen Granade)
The Wizard Sniffer (Buster Hudson)
After combing through my personal IF library which I’ve been building up since I discovered this medium, here are a dozen or so works which continue to stand out to me for one reason or another. Listed roughly in order of first play:
Adventure - Will Crowther and Don Woods
Curses - Graham Nelson
Dungeon/mainframe Zork - Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling
Theatre - Brendon Wyber
Treasures of a Slaver’s Kingdom - S. John Ross
Spellbreaker - Dave Lebling
Plundered Hearts - Amy Briggs
Arthur - Bob Bates
1893: A World’s Fair Mystery - Peter Nepstad
Risorgimento Represso - Michael J. Coyne
Lydia’s Heart - Jim Aiken
Kerkerkruip - Victor Gijsbers
Counterfeit Monkey - Emily Short
There are still so many classic IF games, IFComp winners, etc. that I haven’t played, but of the assortment of IF that I have played, these are ones that 100% blew me away. In no particular order:
Guess I’ll put some in here, since the deadline’s coming up… It’s impossible to get a true ranking so I just threw together some titles I liked. There’s a lot of good games I haven’t played, and a lot of good games I’d put on here if I had more room for them, so who knows. On a different day I would have included different games.
There are two lists–the first with personal favorites, and the second with games that aren’t necessarily personal favorites, but I still liked them and they’re well-known enough that I’d recommend them for a top 50. Sorted by author but besides that they’re in no particular order. Also the second list has some games I added for the heck of it, since I couldn’t think of enough to fill 20 slots. There are some weird choices here. I should probably diversify my authors.
–
Ones that have stuck with me, in no particular order:
While reading this list, you may get the impression I’m hopelessly stuck in the past. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but I am trying to catch up. Really.
The main obstacle is that I’m still spending way too much time stubbornly resisting hints and walkthroughs. But I did - finally - finish So Far after 17 years of futility, so some progress is being made.
So, how does a particular game make my list? In the end, it’s mostly about memorability. In an odd way, I feel like I’ve actually been to the places described in the games below. And that generally comes from a combination of evocative writing and well-integrated puzzles that compelled me to read and re-read the descriptions until they took home in my head. Other qualities, most notably story and humor, influenced my judgement as well, but are less important.
Games are listed in order (2019 ranking in parentheses). As before, I’m not including games I’ve started but not yet finished.
I might have been more impressed with this one if I hadn’t gone into it with such high expectations. There’s no denying its technical excellence or its fun factor, yet it just didn’t stick with me the way the games higher on this list did. For all its brilliance, it just doesn’t have the atmosphere of my higher-rated games, a feat that would have admittedly been tough to pull off in a wordplay game.
The best parts of this game are superb. If only the second half held together as well as the first.
If I hadn’t learned from online reviews that there was a large amount of hidden content, realistically only available to those replaying the game and using knowledge gained from a prior playthrough, I would have stopped playing when the game ended with an ostensibly successful ending. And that would have been a shame because it’s the larger hidden game that reveals just how sophisticated and clever the magic system is.
Do you dread parties where the social interaction bores you to tears, yet you attend out of some sense or moral obligation? If so, this game is for you.
Grunk - Best Characer Ever
This one hasn’t aged as well as I’d expected, but it’s still a must-play for the time travel puzzle.
The Puzzle is amazing, but I lowered this one a few notches because it doesn’t have the atmosphere of the two higher Plotkin games on this list and thus hasn’t stuck with me as much.
Partly still a Zork, partly something new. A seamless transition with great atmosphere and some first-rate puzzles.
This is neither here nor there, but I purchased this game about the same time I started listening to Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom, an oddly apt pairing.
Why the big jump up from 2019? Because, although I haven’t played in quite a few years, if you asked me for directions from the Hall of Mists to the pirate’s treasure chest deep in the maze, I could tell you instantly, without consulting a map.
I can’t tell you how many attempts it took me to get the sequence of the second half of the game exactly right - this is probably the most tightly-timed IF I’ve ever played. But if you enjoy this sort of thing - and I do - and the highly evocative writing that accompanies it, this one should not be missed.
I would recommend this game to anyone. Well, not quite anyone. There are some who might be turned off or offended by some of the crude language and descriptions. But let’s be clear: these are in no way gratuitous. They bring the reader directly into the world.
Outstanding writing, not focused on puzzles, but not so easy that you’re just “clicking through it.” And the ending is deeply satisfying. Simply put, the pinnacle of largely puzzleless IF.
P.S. I’m no literary critic, but I’d love to read what @kamineko has to say about this one.
This game gets a lot of flak for its puzzles such as Tower of Bozbar (Hanoi), but let’s overlook that for the moment, shall we? And, while we’re at it, best to overlook the jester as well. This game definitely has its flaws. But in my mind they’re easily overcome by its strengths. How about the chess puzzle? And could anything be more fun than the wand? These are among the best puzzles Infocom ever created. And for those who enjoy a spatial challenge, finding the optimal geographical path through the game adds another fun - if totally unnecessary - challenge.
It took me 17 years (sometimes taking a break for several) and many long hours to finish this. But in the end it was worth it, not just for the satisfaction of finally figuring it out, but for the pleasure of having fully experienced this admittedly often disturbing world.
Although perhaps not that impressive by today’s standards, the gold machine puzzle blew my mind when I first played this game back in the early '80s. Revelation: text adventure games can be so much more than N, GET GOLD, KILL TROLL WITH SWORD.
Forget the sex stuff (which is generally tame, even in so-called lewd mode). This game has terrific puzzles, including the inspiration for the primary mechanic in Counterfeit Monkey.
This is now my first recommendation to people who have never played a parser game. With only 7 commands, there are no worries about incorrect syntax, guess the verb, etc., so it’s a good way to ease into things. But it’s also a great experience for seasoned parser players because it’s funny, truly clever and an enormous amount of fun.
Yeah, I got the babel fish, but that was nothing compared to the satisfaction of being recognized as a heavy duty philosopher.
I still insist the description of the idol doesn’t make logical sense, but everything else about this game is terrific. Plus, it has more than usual replay value.
Fantasy and history have been mixed before (and after) this one, but never to such striking effect. Absolutely brilliant.
I sometimes fear that we, as a community, have too short a memory. Games that were receiving many votes four years ago receive almost none now, even though they are still towering achievements. But that’s just a fear. What I know for certain is that I have too short a memory. Checking my own previous lists, there are some games that I recall liking… but don’t really recall. I can’t really vote for those with a good conscience, though they might well have appeared in this list if I had replayed them recently. So here is my top 20, deeply imperfect, but perhaps still a possible source of inspiration.
Here’s my 11th hour submission, sorted by author name. Ten of these games were from previous versions of this list, ten were titles that haven’t gotten the attention I felt like they deserved.
Blue Lacuna, by Aaron A. Reed
Open Sorcery, by Abigail Corfman
Photopia, by Adam Cadre
Varicella, by Adam Cadre
Hadean Lands, by Andrew Plotkin
Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin
We Know the Devil, by Aevee Bee and Mia Schwartz
The Grown-Up Detective Agency, by Brendan Patrick Hennessy
Counterfeit Monkey, by Emily Short
Savoir-Faire, by Emily Short
You are SpamZapper 3.1, by Leon Arnott
Anchorhead, by Michael Gentry
Cryptozookeeper, by Robb Sherwin
Even Some More Tales from Castle Balderstone, by Ryan Veeder
The Little Match Girl 2: Annus Evertens, by Ryan Veeder
A Rope of Chalk, by Ryan Veeder
Ryan Veeder’s Authentic Fly Fishing, by Ryan Veeder
Several Other Tales from Castle Balderstone, by Ryan Veeder
Rameses, by Stephen Bond
Horse Master, by Tom McHenry
In no particular order:
Galatea, by Emily Short
So Far, by Andrew Plotkin
Superluminal Vagrant Twin, by C.E.J. Pacian
Birdland, by Brendan Patrick Hennessy
Will Not Let Me Go, by Stephen Granade
Midnight. Swordfight., by Chandler Groover
1893: A World’s Fair Mystery, by Peter Nepstad
De Baron, by Victor Gijsbers
Violet, by Jeremy Freese
Shade, by Andrew Plotkin
Bee, by Emily Short
Cactus Blue Motel, by Astrid Dalmady
Blue Chairs, by Chris Klimas
Lost Pig, by Admiral Jota
Slouching Towards Bedlam, by Star Foster and Daniel Ravipinto
Metamorphoses, by Emily Short
Shrapnel, by Adam Cadre
Babel, by Ian Finley
City of Secrets, by Emily Short
Fallen London, by Failbetter Games
The Gostak, by Carl Muckenhoupt
All Things Devours, by half sick of shadows
A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Steve Meretzky
For a Change, by Dan Schmidt
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky
Trinity, by Brian Moriarty
Ad Verbum, by Nick Montfort
Aisle, by Sam Barlow
Curses, by Graham Nelson
Zork I, by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling
What’s the exact cutoff tonight, @VictorGijsbers ? I’m trying to shoehorn in a few more tonight, but I don’t know what the deadline is other than “September 3rd”. I’m guessing I’m not the only one hopelessly unpunctual.
ETA: (I’m just going to assume if it’s still September 3rd in Amsterdam, we’re still good. Since it’s 6:06 am, September 3rd, over there right now, that translates to a little less than 18 more hours of September 3rd. 11:59PM, September 3rd in Amsterdam is 5:59PM, September 3rd EST.)
I’d hoped to write more about all this! But with the deadline approaching, i want to get something in.
So in no particular order, here are some of the works that stood out to me the most over the years:
Very parser-biased; I’m afraid I just haven’t played enough choice-based works to have strong opinions on the genre as a whole.