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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

Most popular text-based games

Norton Commander 5.5

applicationDOS

Borland Turbo Basic 1.0

applicationDOS

QBASIC

applicationDOS

Text-based games

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Myth

DOS19894.2/5 Magnetic Scrolls
Slash'Em

Windows XP/98/95Linux1997freeware4.2/5
ZZT

DOS1991freeware4.2/5 Epic MegaGames
Zork I: The Great Underground Empire

DOS19824.2/5 Infocom

Zork is one of the most popular text-adventures and one of the first interactive fiction games ever created. The first Zork was developed in the seventies and ported on various platform by Infocom in the early 80s. Infocom was one of the most prolific developers of text-adventures for home computers and created memorable interactive fiction ga...
Cascade

DOS19904.2/5 PC Solutions
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

DOSMac1984freeware4.2/5 Infocom

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a humorous free text adventure game based on the novel of the same name written by Douglas Adams (if you never read it, shame on you!). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was designed by Douglas Adams himself and interactive fiction god Steve Eric Meretzky, it was released by Infocom in 1984 for DOS and for...
Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz

DOS19834.1/5 Infocom
Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur

DOS19894.1/5 Infocom
Borland Turbo Basic 1.0

DOS19874.1/5 Borland Software Corporation
A Mind Forever Voyaging

DOSMac19854.1/5 Infocom
Rambo First Blood Part 2

DOS19854.1/5 Angelsoft
Air Traffic Controller

DOS19854.1/5 Cascoly Software
Championship Manager Italia

DOS19934.1/5 Sports Interactive Limited
Time and Magik: The Trilogy

DOS19884.1/5 Level 9 Computing
Suspect

DOS19844.1/5 Infocom
Mo'Slo

DOS1990protected4.1/5 Dr.David's Super Crispy Software

The previous file hosted here was put online by mistake (it was the deluxe version, not the basic one). Copyright holders kindly allowed Abandonware DOS to link directly to their website where you can buy the deluxe version of Mo'Slo.
DND

DOS19844.1/5
James Bond 007: Goldfinger

DOS19864.1/5 Angelsoft
Questprobe featuring The Hulk

DOS19844.1/5 Adventure International
Breakers

DOS19864.1/5 Synapse Software
A-Maze

DOS19894.1/5 New Era Software
IBM Assistant 2.0

DOS19864.1/5 IBM
Dream Zone

DOS19884.1/5 Naughty Dog
Questprobe featuring Spider-Man

DOS19864.1/5 Adventure International
Borland Turbo Pascal 2.0

DOS19834.1/5 Borland Software Corporation
Sorcerer

DOS19844.1/5 Infocom
Dungeon Master's Assistant Vol 1

DOS1988protected4.1/5 SSI Strategic Simulations Inc.
Turbo Prolog 2.0

DOS1986protected4.1/5 Borland Software Corporation
Doszip Commander

DOS2007freeware4.1/5
PKzip

DOS1989protected4/5 PKware