Yet Another(?) Game Suggestions Request

Hi,

I’m new to IF. I’m hoping that this is a more immersive form of entertainment than video games! Can you give me some suggestions on what to read? I’m looking for IF with these features:

Well-written (extremely important!)
Reads like I am the main character of a novel, screenplay or even comic
Immersive - it says “you” when referring to the reader
No puzzles / Light puzzles / Easy puzzles
Some socialization
Lots of choices for me to make
Not especially “Adult”
Plain text might not be boring but flash would be more lively

Extra points if I get to be something interesting. I don’t care for ninja but I’ll use that as an example. And though I didn’t want to bring this up… I’m a young adult female. So something specifically written for a female character would be great but I won’t limit myself to those books, if you will, because I’m sure they are extremely rare.

So there it is! Is there anything like that? Oh, and if there is a bit of romance or seduction in the female roles that will be fine with me. Nothing crazy though!

Hello, K.A., and welcome to the forum!

You mentioned that the genre is new to you. Have you played any IF before at all? If so, was it choice-based (with a number of links or buttons at each “page”) or parser-based (where you enter an English sentence describing your actions)?

I’d recommend Bronze by Emily Short and Lost Pig by Admiral Jota as good first games. The only (released) romance-themed IF that I can think of is the Infocom game Plundered Hearts, although I don’t know if there’s any legal way to obtain it at this point. (Several other Infocom games were re-released by Activision, but I don’t think PH was among them.) All three of these are parser-based with puzzles, but have excellent writing and convincing characters with some degree of social interaction. PH and Bronze both have explicitly female protagonists as well.

Not as good as hand-crafted recs, I know, but when you have specific requirements it’s often a good idea to use the advanced search on IFDB. So, f’rinstance, you could search for female-protagonist games with a rating of at least 3.5/5 stars, or female-protagonist romance games with a 3.5+/5 rating and at least 3 ratings.

Welcome, K.A.!

Plundered Hearts appears to be on the Lost Treasures of Infocom app for iPhone/iPad. (It’s on the right in the third row, isn’t it?)

From what you say, though, it doesn’t sound like you’re especially committed to typing in commands as opposed to clicking or some other multiple choice method of interaction, or to plain text… in which case I’d definitely recommend Digital: A Love Story by Christine Love. It’s one of the more literary options out there, and it doesn’t exactly have a lot of graphics but it’s not just a stream of text (the interface simulates a Commodore Amiga from the early 90s). You could also check out Love’s Don’t Take It Personally Babe, It Just Ain’t Your Story which does have graphics and more choices, and though the character you control is a high school teacher there are lots of romance stories among the kids (including the girls) and, well, it isn’t really the teacher’s story. Christine Love is one of the best writers in games, too.*

You could also look into the multiple-choice games from Choice of Games. They are, as the name suggests, very heavy on choice, and they let you assume interesting roles – the two that are available for free have you take the role of a dragon and a pirate. They also let you choose the gender of your character.

The games from maga’s search list are also pretty good ideas, though the first one has a lot with difficult (even excessively difficult) puzzles.

*“One of” only because I haven’t played everything else.

Thanks for the recommendations and links! The IF I tried recently had drop-down menus or links for each choice. I’d MUCH rather have a button or a link to click but the quality of the game and the possibility of me liking it is more important to me than not having to type my actions. I perused three pages of results from the IFDB links but I couldn’t find anything I liked. However, out of the suggested titles I think I will enjoy Plundered Hearts. :slight_smile: