I think a lot of folks who follow this site already know this but people still make text adventure games like during the days of Infocom and they’re still very good! In fact, I think many of them are even better than the classics. That’s not to say the classics are bad, they’re very good, I just think many made post-golden age of text adventures are even better. You can download many free ones on IFDB.

Some that are friendly to beginners that I happen to enjoy are Lost Pig, Galatea, Bronze, and The Dreamhold, but there’s a nice list of more interactive fiction on IFDB’s top 100 list if you’re looking for more to play. Not all of these are text adventures but I also love interactive fiction in the form of Twine games and other forms so no complaints there. I think the commercial text adventure Thaumistry is a good intro to text adventures as well.

If you want to download these free games instead of playing them in a browser, you’ll probably need something to run the files. I think Gargoyle is neat but there’s plenty of options. Some games are also easier to play if you map out the rooms. Personally I love writing these down in a notebook but Trizbort is a nice app for mapping rooms on your computer. I use a desktop version for Windows but apparently there’s now a browser version available.

If you want to see what else folks are up to in the scene, I recommend exploring the rest of IFDB and checking on competitions like IF Comp and Spring Thing. IF Comp has been going on since the 90s. While I stopped following that one for a while because they allowed AI stuff, it seems like they’re starting to clamp down on it so that’s nice.

Anyway, if you’ve never played a text adventure before, give it a shot! Maybe you’ll discover a new genre of games you really enjoy.