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If you're looking for a specific kind of IF, you can create a poll to ask other people for recommendations.
"This poll is part of the 2022 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best humor game of 2022. Voting is anonymous and open only to IFDB members..." by MathBrush - 24 votes for 6 games, last vote on February 18, 2023; created on January 30, 2023"This poll is part of the 2022 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best slice of life game of 2022. Voting is open to all IFDB members...." by MathBrush - 24 votes for 4 games, last vote on February 18, 2024; created on February 1, 2024"This poll is part of the 2023 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best TADS game of 2023. Voting is open to all IFDB members. Eligible games..." by verityvirtue - 24 votes for 15 games, last vote on August 12, 2022; created on October 11, 2015"Looking for IF which uses procedural generation (? I'm not a programmer) to derive its writing, story, etc."
by Fredrik - 24 votes for 20 games, last vote on February 12, 2023; created on November 2, 2010"I really need to improve my rotten Spanish, and I can think of no better way to do it than by playing IF. But there are tons of games out there, so what to choose? In other words: Por favor, ¡dame los favoritos tuyos!"
by Emily Boegheim - 23 votes for 21 games, last vote on April 23, 2019; created on November 1, 2013"What are some good games for people trying to learn another language? I imagine that short games with relatively simple prose and not too many non-standard commands (if they're parser games) would work best, but feel free to suggest..."
by aaronius - 23 votes for 15 games, last vote on January 1, 2023; created on November 5, 2009"I'm looking for games that demonstrate the power of text-based games. Games with sentences that would make developers of 3D games weep, like "The army of ten million robots marched over the liquid landscape," or "She concealed her anger..."
by Xw - 23 votes for 18 games, last vote on August 5, 2022; created on March 6, 2020"any game will do"
by Canalboy - 23 votes for 16 games, last vote on July 2, 2023; created on October 7, 2021"By this I mean games that can be made unwinnable near the start or have hellish opening puzzles."
by Nathaniel - 23 votes for 14 games, last vote on July 31, 2022; created on December 8, 2016"Twine (or other hypertext) games where your decisions make a significant difference, and the story changes significantly based on them (not just resulting in your death)."
by Bishopofbasic - 23 votes for 13 games, last vote on August 2, 2022; created on March 23, 2016"Howdy everyone, I'm on the hunt for a good western text adventure or IF depending on how you call it. Something, that's quite fun to play. The year of release doesn't matter to me. Just looking for some great games to sink my teeth into...."
by MathBrush - 23 votes for 8 games, last vote on February 17, 2023; created on January 30, 2023"This poll is part of the 2022 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best game of 2022 written in a system used by less than 5 games in 2022,..." by MathBrush - 23 votes for 7 games, last vote on February 17, 2023; created on January 30, 2023"This poll is part of the 2022 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best Ink game of 2022. Voting is open to all IFDB members. Eligible games..." by MathBrush - 23 votes for 9 games, last vote on February 17, 2023; created on January 30, 2023"This poll is part of the 2022 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best surreal game of 2022. Voting is anonymous and open only to IFDB..." by theqbasicwizard - 23 votes for 13 games, last vote on January 1, 2023; created on October 18, 2013"I'm wanting to do an episode for the podcast that deals with only the worst possible IF games ever programmed? You know the kind that if you would have played it for another minute longer, that you would have never played another IF ever..."
by murphy_slaw - 22 votes for 10 games, last vote on April 19, 2019; created on March 8, 2009"I'm looking exquisitely bad games. Games with warped aesthetics and worldviews far removed from consensus reality. Games that are, in the words of Michael Martin, "exactly good enough that I had to keep going to see what it did next"...."
by Rovarsson - 22 votes for 18 games, last vote on June 24, 2023; created on March 23, 2022"I found the BBC Micro archive a little while ago and I'm overwhelmed. (http://bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php?search=Text+Adventure&on_S=on) Any recommendations? I've put two games in myself from both sides of the spectrum: a 1984 old-school..."
by loocas - 22 votes for 17 games, last vote on April 25, 2023; created on October 2, 2009"I imagine that the interactive nature of IF would allow themes of fate and free will to be used powerfully. Perhaps the PC is given a glimpse of his or her future and the player tries to avoid it. Are there games in which this is done?..."
by Ghalev - 22 votes for 12 games, last vote on January 1, 2023; created on November 24, 2009"Here's a dangerously subjective poll. I can be a bit impatient with text adventures on most days, sadly, and if a game doesn't grab me, shake me, French-kiss me and hump my leg in the first 2,000 words (those long intros count toward the..."
by thecanvasrose - 22 votes for 16 games, last vote on March 2, 2021; created on August 26, 2019"I've recently reached an intermediate level of French speaking at my university. I can easily read relatively straightforward sentences, that is, but writing which is highly poetic or archaic I will not understand. I think I know French..."