Adam Cadre 2000
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Licence: Freeware
System: Interpreter

You wake up from the phone ringing. A voice tells you you were supposed to start your presentation at the office at 9. Your gold watch tells you it's already 9:05. Apparantely having slept in your soiled clothes, you ponder your next move...

Neil Sorenson 1993
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

This is a must for every Xanth-Fan! I always loved the great books of Piers Anthony and searched hard for any computer-games based on it. Long before I was able to get my hands on the graphical adventure I found this game (and lost it when my harddisk crashed).

Mr Creosote 1996
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 0/6
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

The first text adventure I wrote. Story has been ripped off a Mickey Mouse comic with just the character names removed.

Puzzles are virtually nonexistent, the 'parser' only understands commands which have been hardcoded into the game.

Michael S. Gentry 1998
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Licence: Freeware
System: Interpreter

This inheritence came as a surprise: Even your husband Michael had never heard of these distant relatives of his before. Now, the last of the family Verlac has died and Michael is the only remaining heir of the nice estate in the small New England town of Anchorhead. Since this goes along well with his teaching job, you two decide to move there.

Thomas Biskup 2002
Genre: RPG
Rating: 4/6
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

If there is one game that professional developers and publishers hate, it's Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM). The final version (1.0) released in late 2002, this freeware role-playing game that fits on a single floppy offers an unprecedented depth of character development and a length of gameplay that easily matches the longest games ever released. In fact, ADOM offers more replay value than any game released in the 21st Century, and unlike many of those games, it remains fun no matter how often you replay it.

Mr Creosote 1996
Genre: Action
Rating: 0/6
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

This is actually not a game, but only a 'programming excercise' I did for myself. It was intended to mimic the basics of a shooter, but all you can do is move around and shoot, because there are no enemies.

Infocom 1986
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

In spite of a few visits as a kid, I've pretty much always been quite a cynic about the circus. Ballyhoo is all about the circus. So insert your favourite fuzzy stereotypes here as I'll neither be listing them, nor be talking about 'the magic' or whatever. This game is set in the circus. The owner's daughter has been kidnapped and she's held for ransom. The player has to find her, because the detective who has been hired to investigate is a clueless drunk.

Cameron Wilkin 1999
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 2/6
Licence: Freeware
System: Interpreter

"Ignorance is bliss", people say. Know those clichéd fantasy settings in which a knight in shining armour slashes his way through hordes of 'monsters', although the whole time, you have this nagging question in the back of your head how this guy is exactly 'good' and how his victims are 'evil'? Then Bliss might be for you. On the surface, the game is exactly what we all despise: Your alter ego, the hero, has been captured by the Orcish army of an evil magician. Now, he has to escape from the dungeon and finally kill the evil guy's dragon. The whole journey being a violent killing spree. However, the evil wizard has apparantely put a curse on your head as sometimes, reality just seems to fade away...

Infocom 1987
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Border Zone is another of Infocom's IF masterpieces. That means it uses the greatest parser ever made. But that alone doesn't make a great game!
There are other things that cause this. First the plot. It is a spy thriller. With microfilms, evil agents, an assassination and all the other cool features you know from these old movies. Only that YOU are involved this time!

Interplay / Activision 1986
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Sam Harlow - Private Eye. It all begins with a quiet day at the office when the phone rings. 'They want you dead', a voice gasps. And how right that voice is! Two thugs are already hot on your trail. And even after you manage to escape those two, that wasn't the end of it: Your ex-wife has been kidnapped, everybody who tries to help you is assaulted and even more bad guys are after you.