I played Dual Transform after seeing your recommendation and loved it—thanks for bringing it to my attention!
5 Likes
My list (in no particular order, after the first couple):
- Counterfeit Monkey by Emily Short – This is my all-time favorite IF game. I adore the core gameplay mechanic of being able to alter the world of the game by messing around the text. This is more than a novelty and ties into the story; a perfect balance of form and content.
- howling dogs by Porpentine – My other all-time favorite. This is a haunting and deeply affecting game. A Twine classic.
- Horse Master by Tom McHenry – Such a weird, bizarre game, but so, so good. It’s what I always wanted Tamagotchi to be like.
- Superluminal Vagrant Twin by C.E.J. Pacian – A classic example of the journey being more important than the destination. This is a game packed full of little impressionistic poems; each planet you can visit is a rich world, sketched in haiku.
- Creatures Such as We by Lynnea Glasser – Game as game theory, in the mold of self-reflective post-modern novelists like Umberto Eco, who are writing about writing about writing.
- Choice of Robots by Kevin Gold – This is our future; how will you shepherd in the singularity?
- Creme de la Creme by Hannah Powell-Smith – I never thought I would fall so in love with a romance game set in a light fantasy world at a preppy boarding school, but Powell-Smith’s writing and game design make me care so much about the rivalry between Gallatin and Archambault.
- Photopia by Adam Cadre – Just, wow…my other all-time favorite, painful game about parenthood division.
- A Mind Forever Voyaging by Steve Meretzky – Okay, my fourth all-time favorite, in the classic Infocom division.
- Tavern Crawler by Josh Labelle
- Crown of Sorcery and Steel by Josh Labelle – I’m voting for both of these amazing games by Labelle set in the same weird fantasy world. Each game is very different but the pair work together to form more than the sum of their parts.
- Archivist and the Revolution by Autumn Chen – I have a hunch this game (or something else by Chen) will become a classic in the long-run. This game is especially poignant in its treatment of how we preserve the past in the (near) present, amidst all the messy complications of our mundane lives.
- Shade by Andrew Plotkin – Surreal, nightmarish…I’m still having bad dreams after which I wake up with sand in my pockets…
- 80 Days by Meg Jayanth, Inkle – A paragon for modern commercial IF.
- Plundered Hearts by Amy Briggs – Another classic Infocom game that holds up remarkably well, full of swashbuckling fun and a deeper, biting feminist critique of games.
- Mask of the Plague Doctor by Peter Parrish – This is a Choice of Games title that sticks with me – maybe it’s just having played it in the depths of the Covid pandemic, but this is a really interesting game that deals with how we respond to society-altering disease, set in an inventive quasi-medieval world.
- Queers in Love at the End of the World by Anna Anthropy – (edit), adding this after smacking my forehead for forgetting it in the first post. This is the first IF game I go to whenever I’m showing someone IF for the first time. Such an amazing demonstration of the power of choice-based IF.
10 Likes
It’s so hard to pick just 20, but here we go!
In alphabetical order:
4x4 Archipelago (Agnieszka Trzaska)
I spent way too long on this game because it’s so replayable. Even after at least three playthroughs there was content I didn’t see. She’s also written a second game, similar, with a different theme, which I haven’t played.
The Baker of Shireton (Hanon Ondricek)
I laughed so hard while playing this game. It’s a hilarious deconstruction of MMO tropes masquerading initially as a slightly quirky bakery simulation.
Blue Lacuna (Aaron Reed)
I need to give this one another look at some point. I played it back in the day and loved the relaxing beach exploration in an alternate world, but it was just so deep that it was kind of intimidating. It literally contains multiple novels’ worth of text, and there’s so much going on behind the scenes, but it all flows so well.
Counterfeit Monkey (Emily Short)
Sadly, I never finished this one, but it’s the sort of game I recognize for its genius while not often being in the kind of headspace to sink my teeth into its bewilderingly deep complexity of wordplay.
Creatures Such As We (Lynnea Glasser)
The alien perspective in this piece is so refreshing and interesting to figure out. Really unusual.
Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
Some years ago, I played a StoryNexus game about pigs. It was brilliant and disgusting simultaneously, and I couldn’t stop playing it while also being horrified at what I was reading. Perhaps it was a bit like eating an entire container of ice cream while both enjoying the flavor and slowly feeling more and more sick as a result of overeating. Eat Me was like this too, but the juxtaposition was more like a gourmet dessert made out of insects. Polished to a gorgeous shine, bursting with verbose description, but with a horrifying core to its story, and of course we have the literal theme of gluttony taken to an illogical extreme.
Gateway (Legend Entertainment)
One of the final hybrid text adventures produced by Legend, this one ticks all the boxes for clever puzzles, well-done setting based on Frederik Pohl’s Heechee novels, a genuinely likable NPC, and evocative illustrations, all presented in the flexible interface that allowed a range of input styles from all typing to all mouse-based. The jury’s still out on whether the sequel was as good as the original, but it’s fair to say that it was more hybrid, with more graphical click-based interfaces, while still retaining the mostly parser-based input.
The Gostak (Carl Muckenhoupt)
Brilliant and thorough implementation of the sort of puzzle that could never be done in any other medium, the translation of the entire linguistic space into something alien that must be deciphered. [Edit for minor fix.]
Hadean Lands (Andrew Plotkin)
By the time this was released, I was already a fan of Zarf’s puzzle prowess (see Spider and Web below), and boy did this game deliver. I spent hours not only solving the game, but trying to optimize the solve. Even years after it was released, there have been theories about possible hidden rituals, and of course the plot is weird enough to encourage all sorts of speculation about what it actually means. Not to mention the incredibly smooth innovations in solving previously-solved puzzles. It’s a masterpiece in puzzle design.
Impossible Bottle (Linus Magnusson)
Clever and mindboggling. I played it as part of the IF comp and very much enjoyed it.
Junior Arithmancer (Mike Spivey)
Brilliant. As I wrote in my IFComp 2018 comments: “Any IF player who appreciates math puzzles should recognize that this is a masterpiece of IF puzzling.” It’s not the typical “dry goods” sort of puzzling, no, but it’s based on a very clever math concept, implemented flawlessly in IF, and then it’s taken to 11. Yes, I completed the game with all achievements. No, I don’t regret the four hours it took me.
Make It Good (Jon Ingold)
I love mystery stories, so mystery stories in IF are so fun when done well. This one is done well, including replayability! So clever.
Open Sorcery (Abigail Corfman)
The fusion of magic and programming in an IF framework is really well done, and the characters are surprisingly appealing.
Ryan Veeder’s Authentic Fly Fishing (Ryan Veeder)
I include this less because it’s a personal favorite and more because I’m impressed at the technical innovations that made it possible. I did enjoy it, although it’s a little too subtle for my tastes; it’s genuinely a bit difficult to pick up on some of the variations and find the hidden things that will let you make progress in understanding the plot. The conceit of playing it casually, of having the option to just wander around a bit over multiple days and observe the natural habitat was very pleasant. It’s just a little bit at odds with the usual IF tendency to pick up everything not nailed down and try to solve ALL THE THINGS. It literally isn’t possible to solve everything in one session.
Spider and Web (Andrew Plotkin)
I very much enjoyed the pivotal puzzle back in the day. While I doubt I solved it completely by myself, I was enchanted by Zarf’s ingenuity in coming up with the thing, and amused by the responses when you don’t perform it correctly.
Sunset over Savannah (Ivan Cockrum)
Relaxing and introspective, this piece gives its puzzles room to breathe and the player room to explore and contemplate. The environment is lushly described, and the puzzles are all sensible and well-placed. It’s a vacation in IF, in multiple ways.
Trigaea (Adam Ipsen / RynGM)
This is a full-featured Twine RPG with a gorgeous interface, a twisting story with many possible endings, and a long list of achievements which require multiple playthroughs to finish. Simply one of the best modern IF out there. (And a sequel is in the works!)
Violet (Jeremy Freese)
Not as deep as some of the other games on the list, but in the same category as Lost Pig or the Wizard Sniffer, it just has such an enchanting voice to its prose that permeates every response, even what would be standard parser responses in most other games, that it’s a joy to play.
Worlds Apart (Suzanne Britton)
Beautiful, deep sci-fi story.
Worldsmith (Ade McT)
I was completely enchanted by the prequel strategy sequence that set up the world for the game. I played many iterations of just the prequel, testing how it worked and what sorts of worlds I could get. In fact, I spent so long on just that part that I never played much of the actual game! (I should really do that…)
Honorable Mention:
80 Days - I enjoyed the travel across the world and the various little stories, but I didn’t really like the time limit mechanic. I would have preferred a more turn-based approach so I could read and strategize at my own pace.
Adventure - Yes, the classic that started it all. Vastly outdated now, so not “good” in a modern sense, but still important historically. Plus I have a personal connection because I grew up playing it with my dad (along with Quest for Glory, oddly enough); somewhere I might still have some of the hand-drawn maps he made while playing it.
All Things Devours (half sick of shadows)
Difficult, but incredibly clever piece of time travel puzzling. I wanted to include both it and Junior Arithmancer but decided JA was better.
Cragne Manor - I wouldn’t have enjoyed playing this, but I very much enjoyed reading about it here on the forum. Vast and sprawling and rather patchworked, but somehow it worked.
Heaven’s Vault - I don’t really consider this IF, exactly, but it’s sort of IF-adjacent and clearly inspired by games like The Gostak for its linguistic analysis. Slow-moving, but the lore is deep, and it’s fun to make linguistic discoveries.
Pogoman Go! (Jack Welch and Ben Collins-Sussman)
I guess I’m a sucker for a good video game parody, and this is one of the best. It’s a parody of Pokemon Go, of course, but done in IF with some RPG elements to hilarious ends. But I thought The Baker of Shireton was better, and I couldn’t include both.
11 Likes
You all have until it is no longer September 3 anywhere in the world! (I’m here for you, people on Midway island.)
13 Likes
Some picks in alphabetical order with the odd note:
Anchorhead
Aotearoa - This was my ‘returning to IF from the wilderness’ game that showed me a lot of what I would like to do.
Coloratura
Cragne Manor
Curse of the Scarab, The - It got 3rd place in Ectocomp 2020. I feel it’s probably underknown, as I think it’s the densest of the replayable score-heist games to date. You’ll have trouble tearing yourself away from it if you try it!
Grooverland - I think this is the best latest incarnation of the comprehensive uber-parser adventure, with size, puzzles, but some accessibility, too.
Harmonic Time-Bind Ritual Symphony - Simultaneously in control and out of control, semi-autobiographical and mystic, highly esoteric in influences (which I experience as a kind of ‘Thank Buddha, here’s something made by an adult’ feeling) and still a parser game.
Lucifer’s Realm - This is probably the early 80s Apple II graphics’n’parser game that sticks with me the most. You can see people discussing Rick Incrocci’s incredible graphics over in Jason’s Renga in Blue blog, but I’ll just link to one of the posts about the game with many screenshots. It has atmosphere and attitude, scariness, and a black sense of humour that is grounded in the material, rather than just in the contemporary trend of making the parser a jerk to the player.
Strange Odyssey - My favourite Scott Adams game.
Suspended
Wishbringer
You Will Select a Decision - I think the funniest 100% comedic IF.
I don’t feel I can vote for any Andromeda games as I’m too invested in that camp. Similarly some friends’ games. On the other hand, while every co-author of Cragne Manor couches it with a disclaimer, I think we probably should stop doing so because everyone who played it acknowledged the greatness of what they could play, even if they never even got to see or play their own room for years (I can raise my hand to being in that position).
-Wade
14 Likes
Awesome! Okay, so it’s currently 7:56pm, September 2nd in Pago Pago, American Samoa. That means the deadline would be in 28 hours and 4 minutes, or 7am EST, September 4th.
Thanks again!
8 Likes
Time is ticking so I‘ll be short:
Kentucky Road Zero glad to have found that on another list. It is most amazing and the soundtrack alone is worth it
Sorcerer I have limited myself to only one Infocom game, and I had so much fun with this one and it‘s seldom mentioned
Lost Pig all around great fun
Anchorhead finished yesterday, after having played IF games on and off for decades. All that was written about it by others in this thread applies
The king of shreds and patches often gets overlooked or overshadowed by Anchorhead, but it is a great and polished game
Can‘t think of more rn, had a sort of IF hiatus and time is running out…thanks Victor!
12 Likes
I had hoped to try out more games mentioned above before the deadline (especially some of the classics), but couldn’t so short list here too 
Maybe next year I’ll have a full 20-entry list (and it will be hard to choose then)…
In no particular order, the ones that stuck to me the most:
- Computerfriend
by Kit Riemer - The Mystery of Winchester High
by Garry Francis - The Archivist and the Revolution
by Autumn Chen - A Paradox Between Worlds
by Autumn Chen - Plasmorphosis
by Agnieszka Trzaska - Aisle
by Sam Barlow - GONCHAROV 2073
by sweetfish - Sweetpea
by Sophia de Augustin - Elsinore: After Hamlet
by Lapin Lunaire Games
14 Likes
I do it only once every 4 years. 
But you know, I think we shouldn’t beat ourselves over the head for not having played all the wonderful stuff out there… but use the top 50 as a motivation to do so in the four years to come!
13 Likes
Yay! more time for me to play 
11 Likes
I’m going to slip in under the deadline and add All Things Devours by half sick of shadows, a truly wonderful puzzle-box game that was a big inspiration for me writing my own things.
11 Likes
Poached from my IFDB history, no particular order:
Plundered Hearts, by Amy Briggs
Hadean Lands, by Andrew Plotkin
Anchorhead, by Michael Gentry
Savoir-Faire, by Emily Short
Lost Pig, by Admiral Jota
Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin
Metamorphoses, by Emily Short
howling dogs, by Porpentine
A Rope of Chalk, by Ryan Veeder
Stone Harbor, by Liza Daly
And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One, by B.J. Best
All Things Devours, by half sick of shadows
Hunter, in Darkness, by Andrew Plotkin
The Impossible Bottle, by Linus Åkesson
According to Cain, by Jim Nelson
Danse Nocturne, by Joey Jones
Mostly no surprises there – though there are a couple of shorter games which I think sometimes fall through the cracks, and Metamorphoses never seems to get quite as much attention as it deserves.
16 Likes
All of these made me think about games differently or made me think about life differently, or both. They are all some combination of elegant, vulnerable, and startling. They are the ones I think about the most and recommend the most. In order of when I played them:
Zork I
A Dark Room
Bogeyman
Chuk and the Arena
Antique Panzitoum
The Missing Ring
A Rope of Chalk
Present Quest
And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One
A Paradox Between Worlds
Even Some More Tales from Castle Balderstone
The Little Match Girl 3: The Escalus Manifold
Coloratura
The Master of the Land
The Absence of Miriam Lane
Escape from Hell
One Final Pitbull Song (at the End of the World)
SPY INTRIGUE
Sub Rosa
Stay?
15 Likes
~preamble about this list being deeply inadequate and something that will no doubt fill me with guilt, regret, self-revulsion etc. as soon as i post it~
cursory Google search indicated it is not yet the 4th in Hawai‘i. these are both my favorites and what i consider to be the best examples of the capability of intfic (in my extremely limited experience).
Photopia by Adam Cadre
The Archivist and the Revolution by Autumn Chen
Victim Doll by Communistsister
The Fire Tower by Jacqueline A. Lott
According to Cain by Jim Nelson
The Shape You Make When You Want Your Bones To Be Closest to the Surface by Porpentine
Manifest No by Kaemi Velatet
17 Likes
There’s still about 1 hour 50 minutes left, I think.
6 Likes
@VictorGijsbers : I edited my earlier post to expand my list to 20 games.
1 hour and 5 minutes to spare.
9 Likes
Thanks everyone! Stay tuned for the results – I hope in a week or so.
23 Likes
Just checking: which game is this? Do you have an author for me?
Is this the 2023 Square Enix AI thing?
3 Likes
I’m going to assume that this is “What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed” by Amanda Walker. 
And is this the 1981 game Inca Curse?
5 Likes
Sam Barlow’s Her Story, maybe?
(I know stab-in-the-dark guessing is unhelpful and pinkunz will be along soon to say what he means, but I can’t help myself).
Probably Photopia?
(See previous parenthetical)
2 Likes