I've been thinking about trying to play some German IF as a way of practising my (currently terrible) German. Could anyone recommend me some suitable games, please? I'm thinking that short games with relatively simple language and not too many non-standard commands would work best, but I'm open to other ideas as well.

Tale has already suggested some games for me to try (thanks again, Tale!) but I'd love to hear any other ideas as well. I created a poll over at IFDB, but if the games you have in mind aren't on IFDB, feel free to just post here or comment on the poll. I'm planning to go through the suggestions at some point and add any games to IFDB that aren't already there.

There are some hundred German language games and in my own experience in learning foreign languages I think it's not a good idea to handle some "paedagogic" ones. Most wanted games by now are some short IFs like "Es kam aus den Alpen" (keenly Bavarian, Speed IF), "Zurück in die Zunft" or "Allein mit Kai" with simple command sets. If you prefer many text you may consult the two Episodes of "Dickes W", the most interesting ones in German history or culture may be "Schießbefehl" or "Klub Karisma" and you may also consult well-polished fantasy like "Der Angstbaum", "Die rote Blume" or "The Whispered World". There are also a lot of multiple choice games like "Der Schatten jener Sekunde", "Stratos", or the (mostly) stupid talefriends games, but most interesting may be to allude any German game to decide if it works for your concerns. Andrew's Play IF card has been translated to German.

Thank you for the suggestions! I agree about games specifically designed for education. I'm much more interested in games that just happen to be relatively short and simple enough for learners of German. I remember hearing good things about some of those games in the past - I'll check them out!

The Whispered World is a graphical adventure game, isn't it? I haven't played it, but I think I own a copy from GOG - unless I'm getting it confused with another game.

Emerald:

The Whispered World is a graphical adventure game, isn't it? I haven't played it, but I think I own a copy from GOG - unless I'm getting it confused with another game.

I think proc refered to the textadventure version that was released as a mock preview for the graphic adventure on April 1st.

See: http://ifwizz.de/the-whispered-world-(2009-de).html

proc:

Most wanted games by now are some short IFs like "Es kam aus den Alpen" (keenly Bavarian, Speed IF), "Zurück in die Zunft" or "Allein mit Kai" with simple command sets.

Popularity strikes me as a strange criterion for games that should be "accessible" by non-native speakers, especially if top of the list is "Es kam aus den Alpen", an occasionally funny, but essentially rough and underimplemented Speed-IF entry. "Allein mit Kai" might be worth a look, though.

I can recommend "Die rote Blume", a short fairy tale with pithy descriptions. "Der Angstbaum" might fit the same bill, but it is wordier, uses fantasy vocabulary and requires the outdated TAG engine.

For a longer game, try "Homunculus". It can be a bit wordy at times and sometimes inconsistent (arcane, faux-ancient German mixed with jocular modern language), but it is well designed and organised into short sections. "Klub Karisma" is also long. It's well-written and funny, but it contains some wordplay that might be hard to get for non-native speakers.

proc:

... or the (mostly) stupid talefriends games

Recommending or even mentioning those is a bit pointless. They are shoddily designed and the (usually long) texts are not carefully written. It would be better to point any learner of German to interesting weblogs.

Emerald:

The Whispered World is a graphical adventure game, isn't it? I haven't played it, but I think I own a copy from GOG - unless I'm getting it confused with another game.

Yes, it's a graphical adventure game, but there was an April Fools' joke that it would be released as text-only game with an on-line playable demo. For a "joke" the text adventure is pretty solid; it was written by Christian Blümke, an active member of our IF community and author of Klub Karisma. (The demo relies a bit too heavily on dialogue menus, but that's because these were already in the graphical game, from which much of the text was taken.)

Hey,

I've been meaning to make a new release of Schießbefehl for some time now, so you might want to wait a week or two before playing it...

Tale:

I've been meaning to make a new release of Schießbefehl for some time now, so you might want to wait a week or two before playing it...

The week or two will be gone tomorrow, waiting eagerly...

This is a very belated response - family stuff/job hunting/a terrible cold distracted me the last couple of weeks. But thanks everyone for the recommendations! I've added some of the games you mentioned to the IFDB poll, and I'm looking forward to trying some of them soon.

http://ifdb.tads.org/newslog?newsid=170

-)