[dfabulich]

For IF newbies, your best bet is probably to just pick great IF games and use hints as needed. (Prefer gradual hints over step-by-step walkthroughs.)

The IF community maintains IFDB, and a list of the top 100 games. https://ifdb.tads.org/viewlist?id=k7rrytlz3wihmx2o (It can take a full minute to load; be patient.)

All of the games on the list are delightful, but a newbie can't really be expected to finish any of them without hints. Luckily, almost all of them offer gradual hints, either linked from IFDB itself or in-game with a HINT command.