Galatea

Galatea is an interactive fiction game in the form of a conversation with Pygmalion's eponymous statue - or, rather, an anachronistic variant of that character. Galatea isn't a game in the sense of it being something that you 'play' to try and reach a goal, but instead encourages the player just to interact with Galatea and see where you end up. Becoming best of friends, or being strangled by her are two possible endings.

As well as being an important milestone in modern interactive fiction (no longer viable as a medium for commercial games, and dominated almost entirely by dedicated hobbyists), Galatea is an example of how computer games can be meaningful, nuanced, moving and, dare I say it, grown-up. Given that the most popular, most financially lucrative computer games often combine mature content with immature tone, it can be nice to give yourself a little taste of how else things can be.

Game file (this link leads to a randomised mirror of the IFArchive - at least one of those mirrors is currently down, so just click it again if you get an error).
Run that file with a Windows/Linux, or Mac interpreter.