Text-based games: ASCII, etc. sorted by title, from Z to A

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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

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Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur

DOS19894/5 Infocom

Armchair Quarterback

DOS19854.1/5

Arj

DOS19904.3/5

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a compression tool for MS-DOS and other systems. ARJ offered high compression ratios and various features, such as archive encryption and error recovery.

Arachne WWW

DOS1996freeware4.2/5

Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilities. Arachne allowed DOS users to browse the World Wide Web in a graphical, though quite basic, manner. It supported features such as displaying images, handling lin...

Angband

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1992freeware4/5

Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) v1.1

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1996freeware3.9/5

Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021

DOS1987freeware3.9/5 Thinking Machine Associates

Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021 is one of the first 4x turn-based strategy games, ASCII based. Anacreon is set in space, as most 4x sci-fi games are, and was published by Thinking Machines Associates and designed by George Moromisato who later re-released the game as freeware.

Amulet of Yendor

DOS19853.6/5 Keypunch Software

Amnesia

DOS19864/5 Cognetics corporation

Amazon

DOS19843.7/5 Telarium

AlphaMan

DOS19953.6/5

Alice: The Personal Pascal

DOS19854.3/5

Alice in Wonderland

DOS19893.3/5

Air Trax

DOS19833.4/5

Air Traffic Controller

DOS19854.2/5 Cascoly Software

African Adventure

DOS1997remake3.6/5

Adventure in Serenia

DOS19823.6/5 Sierra On-Line

Adventure Game Studio (AGS)

WindowsLinuxMac1997freeware3.9/5

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used by game developers to produce a variety of 2D adventure games. AGS provides a scripting language, a visual editor, and various other tools to simplify the game developmen...