My favorite of all time is "Ad Verbum".

> With the cantankerous Wizard of Wordplay evicted from his mansion, the worthless plot can now be redeveloped. The city regulations declare, however, that the rip-down job can't proceed until all the items within have been removed.

It's full of delightful wordplay and puzzles that play with the text-adventure medium, constraining what words you can use. Highly recommended.

"Spider and Web" is quite short, pretty easy, mostly gives good hints. A great starter-game, I think. I also love Zarf's writing.

https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/

There was a time where I spent most evenings playing "A Mind Forever Voyaging" by Steve Meretzky [1], complete with trying to draw maps and jot down notes and clues, while listening to a Dave Brubeck album on repeat. The fact that I still remember that more than a decade later is a testament to how good that experience was.

[1] https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=4h62dvooeg9ajtfa

Mine is ‘Anchorhead’ (1998), by Michael Gentry. I think it’s actually my favourite game of all time, of all genres.

I’ve played the old, text-only, Z-code version back in high school, around 1999, and the experience was so vivid and immersive that to this day I can draw a map of Anchorhead from memory and recite the lineage of the Verlac family. I think it’s still my favourite game of all time (although I spent much more time on some others).

These days, an illustrated version can be bought on Steam for something like $10. Highly recommended!