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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

DOS19923.9/5 New Era Software

One-Nil Soccer Manager is a text-based soccer management simulation game that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed for various home computer systems, including DOS, Commodore 64 and Amiga. In One-Nil Soccer Manager, players take on the role of a soccer team manager, making strategic decisions to guide their team to s...

Romantic encounters at the dome

DOS19883.9/5 MicroIllusions

Rules of Engagement 2

DOS19933.9/5 Omnitrend Software

Warp Rogue

WindowsLinux2004freeware3.9/5

Monopoly

DOS19853.9/5

Larn

DOS1986freeware3.9/5

Adventure Game Studio (AGS)

WindowsLinuxMac OS1997freeware3.9/5

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used by game developers to produce a variety of 2D adventure games. AGS provides a scripting language, a visual editor, and various other tools to simplify the game developmen...

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.

Mission: Mainframe

DOS19873.9/5

Monopoly (Adam Stevens)

DOS19983.9/5

Forbidden Quest

DOS19833.8/5 Pryority software

Moonmist

DOS19863.8/5 Infocom

The Patcher 6.1

DOS19933.8/5

Deadline

DOS19823.8/5 Infocom

Ascii Sector

WindowsLinuxDOS2007freeware3.8/5

Beyond the Titanic

DOS19863.8/5 Apogee Software

Omega

DOSLinux1988freeware3.8/5

Hack

DOS1984freeware3.8/5

Lawn Mower

DOS19873.8/5

Corporate Raider: The Pirate of Wall Street

DOS1988protected3.8/5 SoftServ

Star Fleet 1: The War Begins

DOSMac OS19853.8/5 Interstel Corporation

Borland Turbo Pascal 3.0

DOS19863.8/5 Borland Software Corporation

Norton Commander 1.0

DOS19863.8/5 Peter Norton Computing

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side panels and featured copy, delete, editing and preview any kind of file easily: it was an improvement over the command-line only MS-DOS interface. Norton Commander 1.0 was fir...