Interactive fiction: text-based adventure games sorted by release date

Interactive fiction games (or text adventures) are adventure games in which the player gives textual commands in order to act within the given story. The story itself is told both using text and static pictures or with no graphics of any kind, just text. The genre's stepping stones are Adventure (developed in 1975) and the Zork series. Infocom, Legend Entertainment and Magnetic scrolls were some of the most popular interactive fiction developers of the 80s.

Most popular interactive fiction applications

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire

adventureDOS

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

adventureDOS, Mac

The Hobbit

adventureDOS

Interactive fiction applications

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Tass Times in Tonetown

DOS19863.9/5 Interplay Productions
The Fellowship of the Ring

DOS19864.1/5 Beam Software
The Pawn

DOS19863.9/5 Magnetic Scrolls
Transylvania

DOS1986freeware4/5 Polarware
Trinity

DOS19864.1/5 Infocom
Acheton

DOS19873.7/5
Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor

DOS19873.9/5 Infocom
Border Zone

DOS19873.8/5 Infocom
Bureaucracy

DOSMac19873.9/5 Infocom

Bureaucracy is an abandoned text-adventure game designed by Douglas Adams (yes, the writer of The Hitchhiker Guide of the Galaxy), developed and published by Infocom in 1987. Bureaucracy is a peculiar interactive fiction; the game challenges you to solve frustrating bureaucratic problems in a world populated by strange characters.
Demon's Forge

DOS19872.9/5 Mastertronic
Gnome Ranger

DOS19873.7/5 Level 9 Computing

Gnome Ranger is an abandoned fantasy adventure game, developed and published by Level 9 Computing in 1987 for DOS. Gnome Ranger was designed by Peter Austin who also designed the sequel Gnome Ranger 2: Ingrid's Back.
Indiana Jones: Revenge of the Ancients

DOS19874/5 Angelsoft
Kingdom of Hamil

DOS19873/5 Topologika Software
Knight orc

DOSMac19873.9/5 Level 9 Computing
Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It

DOS19873.4/5 Infocom
Plundered Hearts

DOSMac19873.9/5 Infocom
Silicon Dreams

DOS19873.6/5 Level 9 Computing
Stationfall

DOS19873.9/5 Infocom
Supernova

DOS1987freeware3.5/5 Apogee Software
The Fourth Protocol

DOS19874/5 The Electronic Pencil Co.
The Guild of Thieves

DOS19874.1/5 Magnetic Scrolls
The Lurking Horror

DOS19874.1/5 Infocom
20000 Leagues under the sea

DOS19883.8/5 Coktel Vision
A Dudley Dilemma

DOS19883.3/5
Corruption

DOS19884/5 Magnetic Scrolls
Dream Zone

DOS19884.2/5 Naughty Dog
Fish!

DOS19883.8/5 Magnetic Scrolls
Gamma Force in Pit of a Thousand Screams

DOS19883.8/5 Tom Snyder Productions
Gnome Ranger 2: Ingrid's Back

DOS19883.8/5 Level 9 Computing
Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy

DOS1988protected3.5/5 Paragon Software