I’m with you on Sorceror - Enchanter is a classic and I haven’t played Spellbreaker, and the copy of Sorcerer I played back in the day was something my dad “got from a guy at work” without the necessary code feelie, but the beginning of that being contained in the (school?) and seeing all these potions that made sense and I could predict what to do with them made me very excited.
Surely everyone who loves the Enchanter trilogy has discovered @DraconisScroll Thief which actually is good enough to be considered a legit Enchanter-series entry.
Ok, so I do love the Enchanter trilogy. In fact, I just replayed the first one with my wife about a month ago. It was her first time playing all the way through it, which was cool for me, since I’ve played it many times since I was a kid.
However, I have not heard of Scroll Thief. You’ve given me something to check out!
HH is a great game, one of my favorites. My wife played it when she was pregnant and bed-ridden with our first child. It was the first Infocom game she had ever played all the way through to the end on her own and she really enjoyed it.
I almost find it harder to name the games I liked the least - Ballyhoo never caught me, Zork I-III are really old designwise, and I found Border Zone to be a bit… pale.
But in order to stick to the question - a game not mentioned so far that I liked equally among the others is Cutthroats. Maybe not for the game aspects, but the setting and atmosphere are described very well and are always present, and while on the island the game gave you the feeling of being part of a vibrant game world where things are going on even if you just sit in a beach chair and watch the locals doing their business. I like that - autonomous game worlds where you run around like a tourist.
I agree. One of the most effective ways text adventures created immersion was through the apparent autonomy of the NPCs, the more lifelike the better. It made the user feel more empathetically connected to the story, just like it still does in modern gaming: there are environments in which players will stay just because it is such a vibrant copy of an idealized real life. Like that Yakuza series–brawler beat-em-up but the neighborhood of Kamurocho is so immersively “real” that the entire game can be set there and no one says boo, this map is repetitive.
Trinity and A Mind Forever Voyaging were amazing experiences.
Wishbringer was the first game I solved with no hints, and I still find it delightfully whimsical. I still play it straight through from memory every couple of years because it’s like revisiting an old friend.
Lovecraftian horror is a huge interest of mine, so Lurking Horror is high on my list.
Spellbreaker’s puzzles are richly designed.
I appreciate the chutzpah of Infidel and its ending.
I love, or at least admire, nearly all the Infocom games. But (and this isn’t what you asked) I think I’d rate Anchorhead higher than any of Infocom’s works. (I’m perhaps a little biased because I was a beta tester, but I loved it from the start.)
Shoot, let’s just go with Trinity. Vote submitted.