Text-based games: ASCII, etc.

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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

Avon

DOS1989 Topologika Software

If Shakespeare wrote video games and then decided, “You know what this needs? A parser and some pixelated drama,” you'd get Avon. In this interactive fiction gem from 1989, you step into the slippers of a humble page t...

B-1 Nuclear Bomber

DOS1981 Avalon Hill

Ever wanted to be responsible for ending the world in fewer than ten keypresses? B-1 Nuclear Bomber (1981) gives you that chance, wrapping global annihilation in glorious monochrome and a user interface that feels like it was desi...

Ballyhoo

DOS1986 Infocom

Come one, come all, to the saddest circus ever pixelated. In Ballyhoo, you're stuck in a depressing carnival trying to solve a kidnapping while dealing with clowns, carnies, and the worst text parser since your last therapy sessio...

Bank Streek Writer Plus

DOS1986

Banner Mania

DOS1989

Baseball Mogul

Windows XP/98/951997 Infinite Monkey Systems

Baseball Mogul (1997) was the original release that kicked off the whole franchise. Developed by Clay Dreslough and published by Infinite Monkey Systems, this was a pioneer in the world of sports management sims. It was released f...

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...

Beast

DOS1984

Beast is ASCII horror at its most gloriously minimal. You’re a brave soul (well, a smiley face) trapped in a dungeon with sentient blobs (the titular beasts) that want you very, very dead. Armed only with moving blocks and r...

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...

Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor

DOS1987 Infocom

If you ever wanted to roleplay in a text adventure where a coconut is of utmost importance, Beyond Zork has your back. This is Infocom at its most delightfully weird: part RPG, part parser game, all nonsense. You’ll customiz...

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...

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 ...

Boggle

DOS1990 HVB Software

It’s Boggle (1990, DOS), the digital version of everyone’s favorite game where you try to spell long words while your friend keeps shouting “DOG” over and over. The game board is a 4x4 grid of letters, and ...

Border Zone

DOS1987 Infocom

Welcome to Border Zone (1987, DOS), where the Cold War is hot and your only weapon is your brain (and maybe a good map). This text-based espionage thriller from Infocom combines spy drama with multiple protagonists and a real-time...

Borland DBase 5

DOS1994 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Eureka: the Solver

DOS1987 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Eureka: the Solver is an abandoned text-based application developed by Borland Software Corporation and released in 1987 for DOS. The product is designed to solve complex problems, generate tables and plots, and perform wh...

Borland Paradox 4.5

DOSWindows XP/98/951993 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Reflex 2.0

DOS1986 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Reflex was a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Borland International, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Reflex was released in the mid-1980s as a graphical database soft...

Borland Turbo Basic 1.0

DOS1987 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Turbo Basic was a programming language developed by Borland, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Turbo Basic was part of the Turbo series of programming languages and development tools that Borlan...

Borland Turbo C v1

DOS1987 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Turbo C v2

DOS1988 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Turbo Pascal 1.0

DOS1983 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Turbo Pascal 2.0

DOS1983 Borland Software Corporation

Borland Turbo Pascal 3.0

DOS1986 Borland Software Corporation

Breakers

DOS1986 Synapse Software

In Breakers, you're a high-tech wrecking crew with a mission: break stuff. Computers, walls, enemy morale—whatever gets in your way. Released in 1986, it feels like a mutant crossbreed of action game and low-budget sci-fi mo...

Brimstone

DOS1985 Synapse Software

Ever wanted to fight fire with... even more fire? Brimstone tosses you into a magical mess of spells, dungeons, and monsters who woke up on the wrong side of the crypt. It’s a 1985 RPG that oozes charm and confusion in equal...

Bureaucracy

DOSMac OS1987 Infocom

Douglas Adams, the twisted genius behind Hitchhiker’s Guide, brings you the most terrifying adventure of all: paperwork. Bureaucracy turns mundane modern life into a text-based hellscape of lost forms, passive-aggressive cle...

Business Simulator

DOS1987 Reality Development

Do you find spreadsheets thrilling? Does the idea of profit margins make your heart race? Then Business Simulator is your kind of party. It’s all about running a faceless company in the most unglamorous way possible—bu...

Cascade

DOS1990 PC Solutions

Castle Adventure

DOS1984freeware