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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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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1893: A World's Fair Mystery

Windows XP/98/95Mac OS20033.6/5

Spellbreaker

DOS19853.9/5 Infocom

Doszip Commander

DOS2007freeware3.9/5

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery

DOS1983freeware4.2/5 Norland Software

Inside Trader

DOS19874.1/5 Cosmi Corporation

Norton Editor 2

DOS19904.2/5 Peter Norton Computing

TomeNET

Windows XP/98/95Linux2003freeware4.4/5

Dragon World

DOS19844.2/5 Telarium

Jewels of Darkness

DOS19864.2/5 Level 9 Computing

Hacker 2: The Doomsday Papers

DOS19863.7/5 Activision

Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers is a video computer game developed by Steve Cartwright and published by Activision. It was released in 1986 and is a sequel to the original Hacker game. The game was available for various home computer systems of the time, including the Apple II, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS.In Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers, players take...

Breakers

DOS19864.1/5 Synapse Software

Myth

DOS19894.1/5 Magnetic Scrolls

Indiana Jones: Revenge of the Ancients

DOS19874/5 Angelsoft

Adventure in Serenia

DOS19823.6/5 Sierra On-Line

IBM Assistant 2.0

DOS19864.1/5 IBM

Lost Adventures of Kroz

DOS1990freeware3.3/5 Apogee Software

Uplink: Hacker Elite

Windows XP/98/95LinuxMac OS2001protected4/5 Introversion Software Limited

Uplink is a computer hacking simulation game released in 2001 by Introversion Software. The game allows players to take on the role of a hacker for hire and engage in various hacking activities.In Uplink, players perform tasks such as hacking into systems, stealing data, and covering their tracks. The game features a realistic representation of hac...

The Shadows of Mordor

DOS19883.7/5 Beam Software

African Adventure

DOS1997remake3.6/5

Championship Manager Italia

DOS19934.1/5 Sports Interactive Limited

Armchair Quarterback

DOS19854.1/5

Championship Manager

DOS19924.1/5 Domark Software

Championship Manager is the first chapter in one of the most successful football manager games series. The first Championship Manager was a text-based British football/soccer simulation and included teams from four English divisions, European cups and domestic cups as well. Championship Manager was designed by Paul and Oliver Collyer and ...