Endless, Nameless

There are at least three camps in the IF world: those who hate using hints; those who rely strongly on walkthroughs; and (the largest group) those who like to play as long as possible without getting hints, and then use just enough to get them through.

This game appeals to all three groups; on one hand, the game world is fairly open and completely forgiving, allowing explorers to try other areas when they are stuck on a given puzzle.

On the other hand, the hint system is embodied in a large group of NPCs with fun personalities. Even better, some of the hints are wrong, as the NPCs have imperfect knowledge of the world.

The gameplay is most similar to Heroes, with a magic system and a lot of find-item-use-item puzzles.

The one annoying part was having to repeat the same basic commands over and over again. The "record" command is very helpful, although I won without it.

Unlike many similar games, the endgame was very rewarding.