Abandonware DOS title

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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy

DOS1988protected Paragon Software
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Voodoo island

DOS1985 Angelsoft
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Sleuth: A Murder Mystery

DOS1983freeware Norland Software
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Sherlock Holmes: The Vatican Cameos

DOS1986 Magicom Multimedia
cutthroats-01

Cutthroats

DOS1984 Infocom
zork3-splash

Zork III: The Dungeon Master

DOS1984 Infocom
The final part of the original trilogy, Zork III ditches treasure-hunting in favor of introspection, moral puzzles, and the looming presence of the Dungeon Master—basically the Gandalf of passive-aggressive mentorship. It&rs...
hollywoodhij-splash

Hollywood Hijinx

DOS1986 Infocom
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Infidel

DOS1983 Infocom
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Supernova

DOS1987freeware Apogee Software
zzt-splash

ZZT

DOS1991freeware Epic MegaGames
ZZT (1991, DOS) looks like it was drawn by an enthusiastic ASCII artist with too much time and not enough colors. And yet, it’s brilliant. Part action game, part puzzle adventure, part game creation tool, ZZT is the reason s...
castlekroz-3

Return to Kroz

DOS1990freeware Apogee Software
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Kingdom of Kroz

DOS1988freeware Apogee Software
prolog_splash

Turbo Prolog 2.0

DOS1986protected Borland Software Corporation
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The Final Crusade of Kroz

DOS1990freeware Apogee Software
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Temple of Kroz

DOS1990freeware Apogee Software
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Lost Adventures of Kroz

DOS1990freeware Apogee Software
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Kingdom of Kroz 2

DOS1990 Apogee Software
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Hacker 2: The Doomsday Papers

DOS1986 Activision
Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers is a video computer game developed by Steve Cartwright and published by Activision. It was released in 1986 and is a sequel to the original Hacker game. The game was available for various home comput...
starcross-01

Starcross

DOS1982 Infocom
farehneith451-04

Farenheit 451

DOS1984 Telarium
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Beyond the Titanic

DOS1986 Apogee Software
Before Titanic was a movie with a lot of weeping, there was Beyond the Titanic, a text adventure where surviving the iceberg is just the beginning. The game takes the historic disaster and then says, “What if we added a secr...
xtrek91-02

Xtrek

DOS1991freewareNSFW
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Hamburger Hell

DOS1986remake
starfleet2-krellan-01

Star Fleet 2: Krellan Commander

DOS1989 Interstel Corporation
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Baseball Mogul 2006

Windows 10/112005
Now with more charts than ever! Baseball Mogul 2006 lets you relive the thrilling world of late-season trades and player salary negotiations in glorious Windows XP-era style. It’s like fantasy baseball, except the fantasy is...
indenture-02

Indenture

DOS1995remake
lha-1

LHA

DOS1988
bible-builder-02

Bible Builder

DOS1992
Ever wanted to combine your love for trivia with Old Testament knowledge and 256-color DOS graphics? Bible Builder is here to test your biblical memory one verse at a time. It's like Jeopardy but with fewer cash prizes and more di...
dudley-dilemma-04

A Dudley Dilemma

DOS1988
A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mildly confusing. You play as Dudley, a man with prob...
codebreaker-02

Codebreaker

DOS1994freeware