The most popular 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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Castle Adventure
DOS1984freeware
The Crack of Doom
DOS1989 Beam Software
The Hobbit
DOS1983 Beam Software
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
DOSMac OS1984freeware Infocom
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 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was designed by D...
Knight Orc
DOSMac OS1987 Level 9 Computing
Knight Orc is a text-based adventure game released in 1987 by Level 9 Computing, a British game development studio renowned for creating interactive fiction during the 1980s. In Knight Orc, you play as Grindleguts the Orc, fl...
Zork I: The Great Underground Empire
DOS1982 Infocom
Zork is one of the most popular text-adventures and one of the first interactive fiction games ever created. The first Zork was developed in the seventies and ported on various platform by Infocom in the early 80s. Infocom wa...
20000 Leagues under the sea
DOS1988 Coktel Vision
Based loosely on Jules Verne’s famous tale, this game lets you live your steampunk submarine dreams with all the elegance of a DOS interface. You command the Nautilus, explore the ocean depths, and encounter strange sea crea...
Zork Quest: Assault on Egreth Castle
DOS1988 Tom Snyder Productions
Interactive fiction meets comic book in this spin-off, where you follow a fantasy story through illustrated panels and scripted choices. Zork Quest: Assault on Egreth Castle feels like your dungeon master turned into a storyboard ...
Transylvania 3: Vanquish the Night
DOS1990 Polarware
The Usurper
DOS1989 Sir-tech Software
Sorcerer
DOS1984 Infocom
The Hound of Shadow
DOS1989 Eldritch Games
Sex Vixens from Space
DOS1989NSFW Free Spirit Software
James Bond 007: Goldfinger
DOS1986 Angelsoft
Corruption
DOS1988 Magnetic Scrolls
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...
Transylvania
DOS1986freeware Polarware
The mist
DOS1985 Angelsoft
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 o...
Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance
DOS1991protectedNSFW Legend Entertainment
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 installment in the "Spellcasting" series. In Spellcast...
9 Princes in Amber
DOS1985 Telarium
Based on the cult fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, 9 Princes in Amber is a 1985 text adventure that assumes two things: you’ve read the books, and you enjoy typing things like “look tree” and “use sword&rdq...
Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz
DOS1983 Infocom
You survived Zork I, and now it’s personal. In Zork II, you face off against the enigmatic Wizard of Frobozz, who exists mostly to mess with you like a magical prankster with way too much free time. The puzzles get harder, t...
Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy
DOSMac OS1986 TRANS Fiction Systems
Plundered Hearts
DOSMac OS1987 Infocom
Scapeghost
DOS1989 Level 9 Computing
Supernova
DOS1987freeware Apogee Software
The Lurking Horror
DOS1987 Infocom
A Mind Forever Voyaging
DOSMac OS1985 Infocom
If you ever wanted to play a video game that doubles as a philosophical think piece, A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) is your ride. Released for DOS and Macintosh, this is one of Infocom’s most ambitious works - a text adventu...
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 ...
Rambo First Blood Part 2
DOS1985 Angelsoft