Abandonware DOS title

The best 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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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.

Most popular text-based games

Norton Commander 5.5
applicationDOS
DOSBox
applicationWindows XP/98/95, Linux, Mac
rawcopy-01

Rawcopy

DOS19924.4/5
qbasic71-01

QBASIC

DOS19914.4/5 Microsoft
QBasic, or QuickBASIC, was an interpreted version of the BASIC programming language developed by Microsoft. It was designed to be easy to learn and use, making it accessible to beginners and hobbyist programmers. QBasic was part of Microsoft's QuickBASIC product line, which included both compiled and interpreted versions of the language. QBasi...
tomenet-04

TomeNET

Windows XP/98/95Linux2003freeware4.3/5
wall-street-raider-01

Wall Street Raider

DOS19864.3/5
ibm-visicalc-1-01

VisiCalc 1.0

DOS1979freeware4.3/5 Software Arts
VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers, and it played a pivotal role in the early history of personal computing. It was developed by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston and first released in 1979 for the Apple II computer. VisiCalc is often considered the first electronic spreadsheet, and its success had a significant impact ...
borland--dbase-5-02

Borland DBase 5

DOS19944.3/5 Borland Software Corporation
mathcad2-01

Math Cad 2.5

DOS19894.3/5
arj-1

Arj

DOS19904.3/5
ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a compression tool for MS-DOS and other systems. ARJ offered high compression ratios and various features, such as archive encryption and error recovery.
dbase3-02

dBASE III

DOS19844.3/5
dBASE III is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that was popular in the late 1980s. It was developed by Ashton-Tate, a software company. dBASE III was a successor to the earlier dBASE II and was part of a series of dBASE products. dBASE III played a significant role in the history of database management systems, especially during ...
zork2-2

Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz

DOS19834.3/5 Infocom
zzt-2

ZZT

DOS1991freeware4.2/5 Epic MegaGames
norton-editor2-01

Norton Editor 2

DOS19904.2/5 Peter Norton Computing
borland-c1-03

Borland Turbo C v1

DOS19874.2/5 Borland Software Corporation
castle-adventure-04

Castle Adventure

DOS1984freeware4.2/5
nortoncommander-5

Norton Commander 5.5

DOS19984.2/5 Peter Norton Computing
Norton Commander was one of the most popular file manager applications ever released for MS DOS. Its clever side-by-side windows interface and the ease of use allowed DOS users to copy, delete, move and preview any kind of file without the hassle of typing every command by hand. Norton Commander was first released in 1986, but the latest and final ...
wordstar4-01

Wordstar 4

DOS19864.2/5 MicroPro International
WordStar 4 was a popular word processing software program during the early days of personal computing. WordStar 4 included features typical of word processors in that era, allowing users to create, edit, and format documents. It used a command-driven interface, where users would enter specific commands to perform various tasks. The software wa...
air-traffic-controller-02

Air Traffic Controller

DOS19854.2/5 Cascoly Software
dream-zone-02

Dream Zone

DOS19884.2/5 Naughty Dog
zork1-2

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire

DOS19824.2/5 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 was one of the most prolific developers of text-adventures for home computers and created memorable interactive fiction ga...
gwbasic-03

GW-BASIC 3

DOS19884.2/5 Microsoft
GW-BASIC (short for Gee Whiz BASIC) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It's one of the early implementations of BASIC and was included as the default programming environment in early versions of the MS-DOS operating system.GW-BASIC was initially released with MS-DOS 2.0 in 1983. Subsequent versions of MS...
sleuth-1

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery

DOS1983freeware4.2/5 Norland Software
rogue-1

Rogue

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinuxMac19844.2/5 Artificial Intelligence Design
Rogue is one of the first RPGs in the history of video gaming. It's a text-based dungeon crawler in which you have to fight your way in the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor. Rogue became popular around 1980 on mainframes and later ported to various platforms, including DOS in 1984. Rogue is simply the father of all the roguelike games that c...
starfleet2-krellan-01

Star Fleet 2: Krellan Commander

DOS19894.2/5 Interstel Corporation
suspect-01

Suspect

DOS19844.2/5 Infocom
arachne-www-03

Arachne WWW

DOS1996freeware4.2/5
Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilities. Arachne allowed DOS users to browse the World Wide Web in a graphical, though quite basic, manner. It supported features such as displaying images, handling lin...
dragon-world-01

Dragon World

DOS19844.2/5 Telarium
jewels-of-darkness-06

Jewels of Darkness

DOS19864.2/5 Level 9 Computing
lha-1

LHA

DOS19884.2/5
js-shogun-02

James Clavell's Shogun

DOS19894.2/5 Infocom