Interactive fiction: text-based adventure games

Silicon Dreams by Level 9 Computing is a trilogy of interactive fiction (text adventure) games released in the mid-1980s. The trilogy includes three separate games: Snowball, Retur...

Don’t let the cartoony name fool you: Skullduggery: Adventures in Horror wants to unsettle you, and it’s surprisingly good at it. This early horror adventure mixes clas...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Sorcerer is Infocom at its most mischievous. You play an apprentice wizard who wakes up from a hangover only to find your mentor missing and reality sligh...

The last entry in Infocom’s Enchanter trilogy, Spellbreaker is where the training wheels come off. It’s unforgiving, cryptic, and expects you to understand spellcraft l...

You’re a teenage wizard in college. There are spells, parties, potions, and more double entendres than a ‘90s teen comedy. Spellcasting 101 doesn’t take itself se...

Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance is an adventure game released in 1991, developed by Steve Meretzky and published by Legend Entertainment. It’s the second installme...

You’d think a spring break trip would be relaxing. Not when you're a magically inclined college student with a knack for attracting trouble (and bikinis). Spellcasting 301 se...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

If text adventures are your thing, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative (1985, DOS) will either delight or destroy you. You type commands to guide Kirk and crew through a no-win sc...

A text/graphic adventure from 1986 for DOS and Mac, Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy is the precursor to Kobayashi Alternative but far more playable. You explore alien worlds, so...

Welcome to Tass Times in Tonetown, where the ‘80s collided with science fiction and nobody cleaned up the mess. It’s a bizarre adventure full of punk hairdos, neon colo...

The Fourth Protocol is a 1985 interactive fiction video game inspired by Frederick Forsyth's 1984 Cold War spy novel of the same name. Developed by the Electronic Pencil Company an...

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 ...