Text-based games: ASCII, etc.

The previous file hosted here was put online by mistake (it was the deluxe version, not the basic one). Copyright holders kindly allowed Abandonware DOS to link directly to their w...

In Moonmist (1986), you’re invited to a spooky English castle where, naturally, murder and mystery are on the menu. This Infocom text adventure mixes romance, ghost stories, ...

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 randoml...

Infocom really went off the rails with Nord and Bert, and bless them for it. This is a text adventure not about dragons or spaceships, but about puns. Yes, literal wordplay puzzles...

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 pane...

Norton Commander was one of the most popular and influential file management applications ever released for MS-DOS. Introduced in 1986, it featured an innovative, dual-pane interfa...

A year earlier, the other Omega (1988) hit DOS and Linux, and no, it’s not the same game wearing a disguise. This one blends sci-fi exploration with tactical decision-making,...

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, inc...

With a title like Ooze: Creepy Nites (1989, DOS), you’d expect something slimy and unsettling—and the game absolutely delivers. A hybrid of action and puzzle elements, ...

Planetfall is an interactive fiction sci-fie game released in 1983 by Infocom, written by Steve Meretzky. It is often considered one of Infocom's best titles. You play as a lo...

President Elect: 1988 Edition is a political simulation game developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and released in the mid-1980s. The game simulates U.S. presidential elec...

In Psycho (1988), you’re tossed into a pixelated nightmare loosely inspired by Hitchcock’s classic, though Norman Bates might not recognize the place. You explore creep...