The best interactive fiction games

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.

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The Hound of Shadow

DOS1989 Eldritch Games

Fish!

DOS1988 Magnetic Scrolls

Jack the Ripper

DOS1995 Intergalactic Development

Questprobe featuring The Hulk

DOS1984 Adventure International

Voodoo island

DOS1985 Angelsoft

Acheton

DOS1987

Acheton (1987, DOS) is one of those text adventures where the game cheerfully tries to kill you every five minutes — and does so with words. You're tossed into a sprawling, brain-melting maze of puzzles so obscure they might as well be written in Klingon. There's no map, no mercy, and definitely no hand-holding. But for the brave (or masochis...

Wishbringer

DOS1985 Infocom

Gnome Ranger

DOS1987 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.

Holy Grail

DOS1984

Rendezvous with Rama

DOS1985 Telarium

Rendezvous with Rama is an interactive fiction (text adventure) game released in 1984. Telarium, a subsidiary of Spinnaker Software, was known for producing narrative-driven games based on popular literary works. This adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's novel is one of the earlier attempts to translate a science fiction classic into an interactive for...

Scapeghost

DOS1989 Level 9 Computing

Starcross

DOS1982 Infocom

Essex

DOS1985 Synapse Software

Silicon Dreams

DOS1986 Level 9 Computing

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, Return to Eden, and The Worm in Paradise. Each game combines elements of science fiction with puzzle-solving and exploration. All three games are text-based, relying on d...

Golden Oldies: Volume 1 - Computer Software Classics

DOS1985 The Software Toolworks

Star Trek: First Contact

DOS1988 Simon & Schuster Interactive

African Adventure

DOS1997remake

African Adventure is one of those games that feels like it was made during a two-hour layover at the airport - but somehow, it works. Set in the savannah, it combines survival, exploration, and a splash of educational trivia (probably). You’ll dodge wild animals, search for artifacts, and occasionally wonder if the devs had ever seen a map of...

Mindshadow

DOSMac OS1985 Interplay Productions

Borrowed Time

DOS1985 Interplay Productions

Borrowed Time is a graphic adventure video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. It was released in 1985 for various platforms, including the Apple Macintosh, Apple II, DOS, and Atari ST. The game is notable for its early use of digitized photos and a noir-style detective narrative.The game's story is set in the 1930s and foll...

Earthly delights

DOS1984 Datamost

Ballyhoo

DOS1986 Infocom

Castle Elsinore

DOS1992 Temple Software

Adventure in Serenia

DOS1982 Sierra On-Line

Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventure gave players a taste of magic, mystery, and constant parser frustration. “Take rock”? Too vague. “Pick up stone”? Try again. But if you cracked...