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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

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Norton Commander 1.0

DOS19863.8/5 Peter Norton Computing

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side panels and featured copy, delete, editing and preview any kind of file easily: it was an improvement over the command-line only MS-DOS interface. Norton Commander 1.0 was fir...

Turbo Prolog 2.0

DOS1986protected4.1/5 Borland Software Corporation

Galaxy

DOS19814.1/5 Microcomputer Games Inc.

Angband

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1992freeware4/5

Microsoft Word

Windows XP/98/95Windows 3.x19833.5/5 Microsoft

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.

Borland Turbo C v2

DOS19883.6/5 Borland Software Corporation

NetHack

DOSWindows XP/98/95Mac OSLinux1987freeware3.7/5

NetHack is an open-source roguelike game that's been around since the early 1980s. It's a single-player dungeon exploration game where you navigate your character through a randomly generated dungeon filled with monsters, traps, treasures, and various items. The goal is to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, located deep within the dungeon's lowest leve...

Alice: The Personal Pascal

DOS19854.3/5

A Mind Forever Voyaging

DOSMac OS19854.1/5 Infocom

CheckIt 3

DOS19902.8/5

Word Perfect 5

DOS19893.9/5 Corel

Borland Turbo Pascal 3.0

DOS19864/5 Borland Software Corporation

Xtrek

DOS1991freewareNSFW4/5

The Shadows of Mordor

DOS19883.7/5 Beam Software

Deadline

DOS19823.8/5 Infocom

Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz

DOS19834.3/5 Infocom

Planetfall

DOS19834.1/5 Infocom

Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor

DOS19874/5 Infocom

Hack

DOS1984freeware3.8/5

AlphaMan

DOS19953.6/5

Castle Adventure

DOS1984freeware4.2/5

Norton Editor 2

DOS19904.2/5 Peter Norton Computing

DeskMate

DOS19842.8/5

Deskmate is a software suite developed by Tandy Corporation that provided a graphical user interface (GUI) and a set of applications for personal computers. It was often bundled with Tandy's TRS-80 and Tandy 1000 series of computers in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Deskmate included various applications such as a word processor, spreadsheet, calen...

Quattro Pro v4

DOS19913.8/5 Borland Software Corporation

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.

Melody Maker 3

DOS19923.8/5

Lawn Mower

DOS19873.8/5

Turbo Pascal 7

DOSWindows 3.xMac OS19924/5 Borland Software Corporation

Turbo Pascal 7 (TP7) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed by Borland as an evolution of their earlier Turbo Pascal versions. Turbo Pascal 7 was released around 1992.Turbo Pascal 7 gained popularity in educational settings and among hobbyist progra...