Games That Changed Your Mind - an IFDB Poll

Before you played X, you never thought you'd like horror games. Before you played Y, you never thought you could take a game with a dragon in it seriously. Before you played Z, you thought linear games would just frustrate you. Tell me about the games that shattered your preconceptions, un-made your made-up mind, broadened your horizons and pleasantly surprised you. Please indicate, in your comments, just what it was the game turned around for you.

View Comments (2) - Add a comment

	Anchorhead, by Michael Gentry 2 votes "I put off playing..." [+]"I put off playing this game for years despite its stellar reviews because "Lovecraftian horror" did not sound like a good time to me -- I don't much care for horror in general, and I associated Lovecraftian genre fiction with overwrought prose and poorly conceived tentacle-villains. But Anchorhead's atmospheric setting and the frightening transformation of its central NPC hooked me hard." () --Emily Short... (No comment) [+](No comment) () --Laney Berry... Vote for this game

	Zork I, by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling 1 vote "In the beginning, there was ZORK." [+]"In the beginning, there was ZORK.: I was never into games like "Dungeons and Dragons" (too lazy to learn the rules, actually) but Zork made sword wielding and troll killing easy and fun!" () --Puddin Tame... Vote for this game

	Rameses, by Stephen Bond 1 vote "Where to start?" [+]"Where to start?: It's really very serious. It's "literary." It's so linear it's suffocating. It has a protagonist I'd like to punch in the snoot and yell at. It's not "fun" by any stretch of the word, and described in those terms, it sounds as awful as it is. But damn, it's really good. I never expected to be able to like ANY of the things that this game is, but there you are." () --Ghalev... Vote for this game

	Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin 1 vote "I never thought anyone would ever produce something as good as Infocom's best." [+]"I never thought anyone would ever produce something as good as Infocom's best." ( - Full review) --OtisTDog... Vote for this game

	Vespers, by Jason Devlin 1 vote "Got me into IF..." [+]"Got me into IF...: I downloaded Frotz on my iPod Touch,bored to tears one day.(Despite the App's description,you can actually DL almost any Z-Machine game on IFDB with it,even though the creator of the port doesn't seem to be aware of that fact.) Anyway,it's the ONLY Interactive-Fiction game which the "mental image" that you automatically create actually scared me during one of the events to the point where I briefly jumped. That's how immersive it was." () --Traze... Vote for this game

	Border Zone, by Marc Blank 1 vote "I was surprised..." [+]"I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the realtime element. It amped up the tension without being punitive." () --Mr. Patient... Vote for this game

	Myriad, by Porpentine 1 vote "Convinced me that..." [+]"Convinced me that CYOA could be mature (both in terms of content and of writing quality) and elicit a strong emotional response." () --Christina Nordlander... Vote for this game

	Adventure, by William Crowther and Donald Woods 1 vote "The very thought of such a game." [+]"The very thought of such a game.: Before Adventure came along, the idea wasn't even there." --Biep... Vote for this game

	The Shadow in the Cathedral, by Ian Finley and Jon Ingold 1 vote "Textfyre? Heck, yeah." [+]"Textfyre? Heck, yeah.: After Textfyre's first commercial release, I was ready to categorize them as "professional, but not at all for me." Reviews of this title pried my eyebrows up, however, and I plunked down the green. I'm glad I did, and I'm grateful to Shadow for turning me around on the matter." () --Ghalev... Vote for this game

	Shade, by Andrew Plotkin 1 vote "Before playing..." [+]"Before playing "Shade", I associated IF with long, difficult cave crawls à la "Adventure", and assumed that a game set in a modern apartment could only be good as a beginner's exercise. Needless to say, I was wrong." --Christina Nordlander... Vote for this game

	Photopia, by Adam Cadre 1 vote "Color use that actually adds to the game" [+]"Color use that actually adds to the game: It's only a small case, but before I played Photopia, I was highly doubtful that color use could ever add to a game rather than detracting from it." ( - Full review) --katz... Vote for this game

	Bogeyman, by Elizabeth Smyth 1 vote "This game, and..." [+]"This game, and the discussion about it on the IFComp 2018 authors' forum, reoriented the way I think about horror games. I go into more detail about this in my review of it." ( - Full review) --Spike... Vote for this game

	PataNoir, by Simon Christiansen 1 vote "Surreal done right." [+]"Surreal done right." () --Floating Info... Vote for this game

	Blue Chairs, by Chris Klimas 1 vote "Didn't think..." [+]"Didn't think I'd like a surreal game. I loved every second of it." () --Mr. Patient... Vote for this game

	Suveh Nux, by David Fisher 1 vote "Before suveh nux..." [+]"Before suveh nux i never thought i would like 1 room escape games. " ( - Full review) --tggdan3... Vote for this game

Is there another game that you think should be on this list? Just fill in the title of a game you'd like to vote for.

Poll created on December 1, 2010