The most popular text-based games

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Felony! is a strange and ambitious early action game that puts you in the role of a criminal on the run. Instead of focusing on a single mechanic, it thro...

You thought running a government was hard? Try doing it with a smug civil servant and a budget crisis every five minutes. In Yes, Prime Minister, you play as Jim Hacker, the PM him...

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 usin...

Forbidden Quest (1983, DOS) belongs to that early era when imagination did most of the heavy lifting. Sparse visuals and text-driven cues invite you to picture grand dangers lurkin...

Dragon World (1984) might sound like the precursor to a sprawling epic RPG, but it’s actually more of a board-game-style fantasy experience. Less “slay the dragon with ...

Beast is ASCII horror at its most gloriously minimal. You’re a brave soul (well, a smiley face) trapped in a dungeon with sentient blobs (the titular beasts) that want you ve...

Before Doom became the 3D gore-fest we all know, there was Return to Doom—and no, it has nothing to do with space marines. This 1988 title is more Choose Your Own Adventure t...

Welcome to 2112, a game that predicted a grim techno-future back when floppy disks still ruled. This DOS-era oddity throws you into a world that’s part cyberpunk, part fever ...

In Breakers, you're a high-tech wrecking crew with a mission: break stuff. Computers, walls, enemy morale—whatever gets in your way. Released in 1986, it feels like a mutant ...

Armchair Quarterback lets you live the dream of yelling at your TV — but on your DOS machine, and with even less control. It’s part simulator, part quiz show, and all w...

Lancelot (1988) is an action-adventure that draws loosely from Arthurian legend and very tightly from the difficulty school of “good luck.” You guide the famous knight ...

Based on Anne McCaffrey’s novels, Dragonriders of Pern (1987) is an odd duck. It tries to blend diplomacy, strategy, and a dash of action into one package. You don’t ju...

If Hamlet had a sequel directed by a DOS programmer, Castle Elsinore would be it. This interactive fiction game drops you right into Shakespearean drama with murder, betrayal, and ...

In Core War Plus, programming isn’t just for making spreadsheets—it’s for virtual combat. You write tiny programs that battle for control of computer memory, turn...