1. Ad Verbum by Nick Montfort (2000) Average member rating: (134 ratings)
Emily Short says:
A classic Nick Montfort game that will test your ability to come up with commands that fit different strictures. Elevates "guess-the-verb" into a genuinely entertaining challenge.
2. Letters from Home by Roger Firth (2000) Average member rating: (18 ratings)
Emily Short says:
An IF game that's half crossword.
3. Goose, Egg, Badger by Brian Rapp (2004) Average member rating: (20 ratings)
Emily Short says:
Toys with the way in which some words are both nouns and verbs in English.
4. Puddles on the Path, by Anssi Räisänen (2003) Average member rating: (3 ratings) Emily Short says:
Solutions to the puzzles in this game require the player to remember and use famous proverbs and sayings.
5. The Gostak by Carl Muckenhoupt (2001) Average member rating: (92 ratings)
Emily Short says:
The entire game is written in an unfamiliar language - or perhaps just a dialect of English in which all the vocabulary is different - and a large portion of the challenge is in figuring out enough about what's going on to be able to interact with it.
6. Large Machine, by Jon Ingold (2001) Average member rating: (8 ratings) Emily Short says:
The machine in question is able to interact with the names of things...
7. The Edifice by Lucian P. Smith (1997) Average member rating: (82 ratings)
Emily Short says:
Contains the famous Nalian language puzzle, in which the player must learn to communicate with a Stranger in the words of his own language.
8. Beat the Devil, by Robert M. Camisa (1999) Average member rating: (15 ratings) Emily Short says:
Mostly more conventional stuff, but includes one puzzle about changing the name of an object in order to change what it does.
9. Suveh Nux by David Fisher (2007) Average member rating: (228 ratings)
Emily Short says:
In Suveh Nux, the challenge is to learn a language of magic with which to control the items around you. (In that respect, it's closer to The Edifice than to the other games on this list.) The puzzles are elegant and consistent.
