Text-based games: ASCII, etc. sorted by release date

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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

Most popular text-based games

Norton Commander 5.5

applicationDOS

Borland Turbo Basic 1.0

applicationDOS

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire

adventureDOS

Text-based games

Sort by:

Red sky at morning

DOS19933.9/5 Simulations Canada
Rules of Engagement 2

DOS19933.9/5 Omnitrend Software
Safe Opening Simulator

DOS19933.5/5
The patcher 6.1

DOS19934.2/5
2112

DOS19943/5
AlphaMan

DOS19953.6/5
Indenture

DOS1995remake4/5
Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) v1.1

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1996freeware4/5
Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

DOS19963.8/5
African Adventure

DOS1997remake3.4/5
Baseball Mogul

Windows XP/98/9519973.5/5 Infinite Monkey Systems
Dungeon Crawl

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1997freeware4/5

Dungeon Crawl (also known as Linley's Dungeon Crawl from the name of the original programmer: Linley Henzell) is a classic roguelike: an RPG with permadeath, procedural generation and high replayability. Dungeon Crawl was released on 1997 but it's not maintained anymore. The spiritual successr of Crawl is DCCS (Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup).
Slash'Em

Windows XP/98/95Linux1997freeware4.2/5
Football Fanatic

DOS1998freeware4.3/5
Monopoly (Adam Stevens)

DOS19983.9/5
Norton Commander 5.5

DOS19984.2/5 Peter Norton Computing

Norton Commander was one of the most popular file manager applications ever released for MS DOS. Its clever side-by-side windows interface and the ease of use allowed DOS users to copy, delete, move and preview any kind of file without the hassle of typing every command by hand. Norton Commander was first released in 1986, but the latest and final ...
DOSBox

Windows XP/98/95Linux2002freeware4.2/5
Taipan for Windows

Windows XP/98/952002freeware3.7/5
TomeNET

Windows XP/98/95Linux2003freeware4.3/5
Uplink: Hacker Elite

Windows XP/98/952003protected4/5 Introversion Software Limited
Warp Rogue

WindowsLinux2004freeware3.9/5
Baseball Mogul 2006

Windows20054.1/5
Ascii Sector

WindowsLinuxDOS2007freeware3.9/5
Doszip Commander

DOS2007freeware4.1/5
Incursion

WindowsLinuxMac2007freeware3.8/5
WitchavenRL

WindowsLinux20133.8/5