Abandonware DOS title

Text-based games: ASCII, etc. sorted by release date

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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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.
amuletyendor-4

Amulet of Yendor

DOS1985 Keypunch Software
Before there were AAA games with 100GB installs, there was Amulet of Yendor, a rogue-like so old-school it might as well come with a floppy disk and a sandwich bag of D&D dice. Your goal? Find the legendary amulet. Your method...
armchair-quarterback-01

Armchair Quarterback

DOS1985
Armchair Quarterback lets you live the dream of yelling at your TV — but on your DOS machine, and with even less control. It’s part simulator, part quiz show, and all weird. You make play calls, analyze stats, and pray...
brimstone-splash

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...
essex-02

Essex

DOS1985 Synapse Software
forbidden-castle-03

Forbidden Castle

DOS1985 Angelsoft
javelin-spreadsheet-01

Javelin

DOS1985
madball-02

Madball

DOS1985
mickey-space-adventure-04

Mickey's Space Adventure

DOS1985 Sierra On-Line
mindshadow-05

Mindshadow

DOSMac OS1985 Interplay Productions
mindwheel-02

Mindwheel

DOS1985 Synapse Software
monopoly-04

Monopoly

DOS1985
promanager-splash

Pro Manager

DOS1985 Avalon Hill
rambo-first-blood-01

Rambo First Blood Part 2

DOS1985 Angelsoft
spellbreaker-02

Spellbreaker

DOS1985 Infocom
starfleet1-battle-begins03

Star Fleet 1: The War Begins

DOSMac OS1985 Interstel Corporation
skthemist-splash

The mist

DOS1985 Angelsoft
treasure-island-01

Treasure Island

DOS1985 Byron Preiss Video Productions
voodoisland-splash

Voodoo island

DOS1985 Angelsoft
wishbringer-splash

Wishbringer

DOS1985 Infocom
amnesia-splashb

Amnesia

DOS1986 Cognetics corporation
In Amnesia, you wake up in a hotel room with no idea who you are, where you are, or why someone wants you dead. And no, this isn’t a gritty FPS—it’s a text adventure. That’s right, no graphics, just your im...
ballyhoo-1

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...
beyond-titanic-01

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...
borland-reflex-2-01

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...