Violet

Violet is entirely responsible for rekindling my interest in interactive fiction recently. The interesting aspects of this game are amply highlighted in the other positive reviews here--that it's a single room game where everything, even metagame response, is conveyed in the voice of the protagonist's girlfriend. In the hands of a less capable author this would have quickly turned into an annoying gimmick, but Freese avoids that fate so thoroughly that I was actually sad when the game was over. Everything, from the nature of the puzzles (battling procrastination) to the never ending stream of increasingly bizarre pet names (lemon squidgie?), fits together perfectly, and almost nothing in the coding of the game was irksome. The single negative review below (at the time of this review) can only be the result of an unfortunate, soul-crushing cynicism.