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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

Sort by:

Voodoo island

DOS19853.8/5 Angelsoft

Star Saga: Two - The Clathran Menace

DOS19893.9/5 Masterplay Publishing Corporation

Knight Exchange

DOS19883.2/5 Softdisk Publishing

Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy

DOS1988protected3.5/5 Paragon Software

Air Trax

DOS19833.4/5

Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

DOS19964/5

Baseball Mogul

Windows XP/98/9519973.9/5 Infinite Monkey Systems

Farenheit 451

DOS19843.4/5 Telarium

Return to Doom

DOS19883.8/5 Topologika Software

Treasure Island

DOS19853.5/5 Byron Preiss Video Productions

Taipan for Windows

Windows XP/98/952002freeware3.5/5

The Witness

DOS19834/5 Infocom

Return to Kroz

DOS1990freeware3.1/5 Apogee Software

Mickey's Space Adventure

DOS19853/5 Sierra On-Line

Einstein Writer 7

DOS19853.5/5

Bible Builder

DOS19923.5/5

Star Saga: One - Beyond the Boundary

DOS19873.6/5 Masterplay Publishing Corporation

Essex

DOS19853.6/5 Synapse Software

Incursion

WindowsLinuxMac2007freeware4/5

Supernova

DOS1987freeware3.5/5 Apogee Software

Bureaucracy

DOSMac19873.9/5 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.

Hollywood Hijinx

DOS19863.3/5 Infocom

Forbidden Castle

DOS19854/5 Angelsoft

ZAngband

WindowsMacDOSLinux1999freeware4/5

Zangband is a variant of the popular roguelike game Angband. Zangband, short for Zelazny Angband, was developed by Chris Weisiger and first released in 1994. The game features a fantasy world with diverse races, classes, and monsters. Players explore dungeons, caves, and other environments in a quest to reach the bottom level of the dungeon, d...