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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

DOS1984freeware4.2/5

Ace 2.02

DOS20013.1/5

1893: A World's Fair Mystery

Windows XP/98/95Mac OS20033.8/5

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the game combines historical fiction with mystery-solving gameplay.In 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, players take on the role of a detective investigating ...

Rambo First Blood Part 2

DOS19854.1/5 Angelsoft

Norton Commander 1.0

DOS19863.9/5 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...

Data Perfect 2.6

DOS19933.5/5

James Bond 007: Goldfinger

DOS19864.1/5 Angelsoft

Lawn Mower

DOS19873.8/5

The Lurking Horror

DOS19874.1/5 Infocom

Star Saga: Two - The Clathran Menace

DOS19893.9/5 Masterplay Publishing Corporation

Air Traffic Controller

DOS19854.2/5 Cascoly Software

The mist

DOS19854/5 Angelsoft

China Sea Trader

DOS19893.5/5

EGA Trek

DOS1988remake3.3/5

Zork III: The Dungeon Master

DOS19844/5 Infocom

FreeDOS Shell

DOS2002freeware3.6/5

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...

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...

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.

James Bond 007: A View to a Kill

DOS19853.9/5 Angelsoft

ZZT

DOS1991freeware4.2/5 Epic MegaGames

Borland Turbo Pascal 1.0

DOS19834/5 Borland Software Corporation

DeskMate

DOS19843.2/5

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...