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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

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Black Friday

DOS1983

Black Friday (1983) isn’t about shopping mayhem—though you might wish it were after trying to figure out what’s going on. This early DOS title is part stock market simulator, part existential crisis. You play as a trader trying to make a fortune before the market crashes and takes your soul with it. There’s no real action, u...

Enchanter

DOS1983 Infocom

Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It

DOS1987 Infocom

Cutthroats

DOS1984 Infocom

Mickey's Space Adventure

DOS1985 Sierra On-Line

Return to Kroz

DOS1990freeware Apogee Software

Skullduggery: Adventures in Horror

DOS1986

Hockey League Simulator

DOS1990 Bethesda Softworks

Farenheit 451

DOS1984 Telarium

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 problems that range from the mundane to the absurd, depending on your choices and sense of direction - both literal and narr...

Banner Mania

DOS1989

Demon's Tomb: The Awakening

DOS1989 Silhouette Software

Doom: The Roguelike

DOS2005freeware

Hamurabi remake

DOS1996freewareremake

Microsoft Multiplan 4.2

DOS1988 Microsoft

Search for the Titanic

DOS1989protected IntraCorp

The President is Missing

DOS1988protected Cosmi Corporation

The Wizard's Castle

DOS1981freeware

The Wizard's Castle is a classic text-based, dungeon-crawling adventure game released in 1980, designed by Joseph R. Power. The game was originally developed for the Exidy Sorcerer computer and later ported to various platforms, such as the TRS-80 and early IBM PCs. The game is set in a mysterious wizard's castle, where the player takes on the...