Text-based games: ASCII, etc. sorted by release date

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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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.

Sort by:

Inside Trader

DOS19874.1/5 Cosmi Corporation

Kingdom of Hamil

DOS19873/5 Topologika Software

Lawn Mower

DOS19873.8/5

Mission: Mainframe

DOS19873.9/5

NetHack

DOSWindows XP/98/95MacLinux1987freeware3.7/5

NetHack is an open-source roguelike game that's been around since the early 1980s. It's a single-player dungeon exploration game where you navigate your character through a randomly generated dungeon filled with monsters, traps, treasures, and various items. The goal is to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, located deep within the dungeon's lowest leve...

Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It

DOS19873.4/5 Infocom

Plundered Hearts

DOSMac19873.9/5 Infocom

President Elect

DOS1987protected3.8/5 SSI Strategic Simulations Inc.

Silicon Dreams

DOS19873.6/5 Level 9 Computing

SRAM

DOS19873.5/5 ERE Informatique

Star Saga: One - Beyond the Boundary

DOS19873.6/5 Masterplay Publishing Corporation

Stationfall

DOS19873.9/5 Infocom

Supernova

DOS1987freeware3.5/5 Apogee Software

The Lurking Horror

DOS19874.1/5 Infocom

A Dudley Dilemma

DOS19883.3/5

Borland Turbo C v2

DOS19883.6/5 Borland Software Corporation

Corporate Raider: The Pirate of Wall Street

DOS1988protected3.8/5 SoftServ

Dracula in London

DOS19883.5/5 SDJ Enterprises

Dream Zone

DOS19884.2/5 Naughty Dog

Dungeon Master's Assistant Vol 1

DOS1988protected4.1/5 SSI Strategic Simulations Inc.

EGA Trek

DOS1988remake3.3/5

Evets

DOS1988freeware3.5/5 SAck Enterprizes

Fish!

DOS19883.8/5 Magnetic Scrolls

Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy

DOS1988protected3.5/5 Paragon Software

GW-BASIC 3

DOS19884.2/5 Microsoft

GW-BASIC (short for Gee Whiz BASIC) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It's one of the early implementations of BASIC and was included as the default programming environment in early versions of the MS-DOS operating system.GW-BASIC was initially released with MS-DOS 2.0 in 1983. Subsequent versions of MS...