Interactive fiction: text-based adventure games sorted by release date
Interactive fiction games (or text adventures) are adventure games in which the player gives textual commands in order to act within the given story. The story itself is told both using text and static pictures or with no graphics of any kind, just text. The genre's stepping stones are Adventure (developed in 1975) and the Zork series. Infocom, Legend Entertainment and Magnetic scrolls were some of the most popular interactive fiction developers of the 80s.
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Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz
DOS1989 Infocom
Circuit's Edge
DOS1990 Westwood Studios
Circuit's Edge is a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Infocom. It was released in 1990 for MS-DOS. Set in a dystopian future, Circuit's Edge takes place in the fictional city of Rhoes Island, a dark and gritty urban landscape filled with crime, corruption, and advanced technology. Players take on t...
Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers get all the girls
DOS1990protected Legend Entertainment
Transylvania 3: Vanquish the Night
DOS1990 Polarware
A Night with Troi
DOS1991NSFW
Magnetic Scrolls Collection
DOS1991 Magnetic Scrolls
Magnetic Scrolls was one of the finest developer companies dedicated to Interactive Fiction. The Magnetic Scrolls Collection is a trilogy of Magnenic Scrolls adventures remade using the Wonderland engine: Fish!, Corruption, The Guild of Thieves. The new window-based interface made text-adventuring easy even for gamers not used to a text-only interf...
Scrooge
DOS1991 Leisuresoft
Scrooge is an abandoned interactive fiction graphic adventure game developed and released by Leisuresoft in 1991 for DO. Scrooge is based on the popular Christmas tale of the same name.
Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance
DOS1991protectedNSFW Legend Entertainment
Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance is an adventure game released in 1991, developed by Steve Meretzky and published by Legend Entertainment. It’s the second installment in the "Spellcasting" series. In Spellcasting 201, you reprise the role of Ernie Eaglebeak, an apprentice wizard who is attending the Sorcerer University. The sto...
Timequest
DOS1991protected Legend Entertainment
Xtrek
DOS1991freewareNSFW
Castle Elsinore
DOS1992 Temple Software
Caverns of Chaos
DOS1992
Frederik Pohl's Gateway
DOS1992 Legend Entertainment
Frederik Pohl's Gateway is one of the best abandoned adventures games from Legend Entertainment. Gateway is an interactive fiction with graphics and an improved interface (unusual for IFs), based on the Frederik Pohl's novel Gateway. Tt was designed by Michael Verdu and Glen R. Dahlgren and published by Legend Entertainment in 1992.
Spellcasting 301: Spring Break
DOS1992protected Legend Entertainment
Eric the Unready
DOS1993protected Legend Entertainment
Gateway 2: Homeworld
DOS1993protected Legend Entertainment
2112
DOS1994
Jack the Ripper
DOS1995 Intergalactic Development
African Adventure
DOS1997remake
Kingdom Without End
DOS2001freeware
1893: A World's Fair Mystery
Windows XP/98/95Mac OS2003
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 ...