The most popular text-based games

In the past, lots of games used ASCII characters (text) to represent the game world. These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.
A few genres traditionally linked to the beautiful world of ascii characters still survives: roguelikes (nethack, angband, etc.) and interactive fiction, for example.

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Sorcerer

DOS19844.1/5 Infocom

Trinity

DOS19864.1/5 Infocom

Business Simulator

DOS19873.9/5 Reality Development

Business Simulator is an abandoned business simulation game developed and released by Reality Development in 1987 for DOS only. Business Simulator is a text-based management simulation designed by an university professor.

Star Trek: First Contact

DOS19883.6/5 Simon & Schuster Interactive

Rules of Engagement 2

DOS19933.9/5 Omnitrend Software

Indiana Jones: Revenge of the Ancients

DOS19874/5 Angelsoft

The mist

DOS19854/5 Angelsoft

Monopoly (Adam Stevens)

DOS19983.9/5

1893: A World's Fair Mystery

Windows XP/98/95Mac OS20033.6/5

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the game combines historical fiction with mystery-solving gameplay.In 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, players take on the role of a detective investigating ...

Classic Hangman

DOS19833.6/5 Norland Software

Amulet of Yendor

DOS19853.6/5 Keypunch Software

Bank Streek Writer Plus

DOS19863/5

Myth

DOS19894.1/5 Magnetic Scrolls

Mind Mirror

DOS19863.6/5

Football Fanatic

DOS1998freeware4/5

Larn

DOS1986freeware3.9/5

Demon's Tomb: The Awakening

DOS19893.3/5 Silhouette Software

Wishbringer

DOS19853.7/5 Infocom

Kingdom of Kroz

DOS1988freeware3.7/5 Apogee Software

Borland Reflex 2.0

DOS19863.7/5 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Reflex was a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Borland International, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Reflex was released in the mid-1980s as a graphical database software primarily targeted at business and professional users.

Championship Manager

DOS19924.1/5 Domark Software

Championship Manager is the first chapter in one of the most successful football manager games series. The first Championship Manager was a text-based British football/soccer simulation and included teams from four English divisions, European cups and domestic cups as well. Championship Manager was designed by Paul and Oliver Collyer and ...

NewsMaster

DOS19863.6/5

Bureaucracy

DOSMac OS19873.9/5 Infocom

Bureaucracy is an abandoned text-adventure game designed by Douglas Adams (yes, the writer of The Hitchhiker Guide of the Galaxy), developed and published by Infocom in 1987. Bureaucracy is a peculiar interactive fiction; the game challenges you to solve frustrating bureaucratic problems in a world populated by strange characters.