Steins Gate is probably what you want to recommend your peers to if you want show them a glimpse of the visual novel medium can do. Its duration is perfect, a sci-fi mystery thriller, good characters, and some poignant themes and remarks on time travel, will, and being. Some missteps were made in what I felt in the later chapters but the way the plot is wrapped up and connects back to the beginning is probably one of the best moments of brilliance I've experienced. I would probably rate this higher if I wasn't so spoiled by playing other VNs that broke my standards at the time when I played this.