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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

DOS19894/5 Wizard Games

Myth

DOS19894.1/5 Magnetic Scrolls

Borland Paradox 4.5

DOSWindows XP/98/9519934/5 Borland Software Corporation

VisiCalc 1.0

DOS1979freeware4.3/5 Software Arts

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers, and it played a pivotal role in the early history of personal computing. It was developed by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston and first released in 1979 for the Apple II computer. VisiCalc is often considered the first electronic spreadsheet, and its success had a significant impact ...

Borland Turbo Pascal 3.0

DOS19863.8/5 Borland Software Corporation

DND

DOS19844.1/5

Word Perfect 5

DOS19893.9/5 Corel

Ascii Sector

WindowsLinuxDOS2007freeware3.8/5

Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur

DOS19894/5 Infocom

Dungeon Master's Assistant Vol 1

DOS1988protected4/5 SSI Strategic Simulations Inc.

AlphaMan

DOS19953.6/5

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).

Zork III: The Dungeon Master

DOS19844/5 Infocom

Plundered Hearts

DOSMac19873.9/5 Infocom

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...

Angband

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1992freeware4/5

Quattro Pro v4

DOS19913.8/5 Borland Software Corporation

Starcross

DOS19823.7/5 Infocom

Borland Turbo C v2

DOS19883.6/5 Borland Software Corporation

Adventure in Serenia

DOS19823.6/5 Sierra On-Line

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

Xtrek

DOS1991freewareNSFW4/5

Galaxy

DOS19814.1/5 Microcomputer Games Inc.

Norton Desktop

DOS19924/5 Peter Norton Computing

Uplink: Hacker Elite

Windows XP/98/95LinuxMac2001protected4/5 Introversion Software Limited

Uplink is a computer hacking simulation game released in 2001 by Introversion Software. The game allows players to take on the role of a hacker for hire and engage in various hacking activities.In Uplink, players perform tasks such as hacking into systems, stealing data, and covering their tracks. The game features a realistic representation of hac...

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...