Text-based games: ASCII, etc.

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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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

Turbo Assembler (TASM)

applicationDOS, Windows 3.x, Windows XP/98/95

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1893: A World's Fair Mystery

Windows XP/98/95Mac OS2003

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the game combines historical fiction with mystery-solving gameplay.In 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, players take on the role of a detective investigating ...

2112

DOS1994

A Dudley Dilemma

DOS1988

A Mind Forever Voyaging

DOSMac OS1985 Infocom

A Night with Troi

DOS1991NSFW

A-Maze

DOS1989 New Era Software

Ace 2.02

DOS2001

Acheton

DOS1987

Acquire

DOS1989 IBM

Adventure Game Studio (AGS)

Windows 10/11LinuxMac OS1997freeware

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used by game developers to produce a variety of 2D adventure games. AGS provides a scripting language, a visual editor, and various other tools to simplify the game developmen...

Adventure in Serenia

DOS1982 Sierra On-Line

African Adventure

DOS1997remake

Air Traffic Controller

DOS1985 Cascoly Software

Air Trax

DOS1983

Alice in Wonderland

DOS1989

Alice: The Personal Pascal

DOS1985

AlphaMan

DOS1995

Amazon

DOS1984 Telarium

Amnesia

DOS1986 Cognetics corporation

Amulet of Yendor

DOS1985 Keypunch Software

Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021

DOS1987freeware Thinking Machine Associates

Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021 is one of the first 4x turn-based strategy games, ASCII based. Anacreon is set in space, as most 4x sci-fi games are, and was published by Thinking Machines Associates and designed by George Moromisato who later re-released the game as freeware.

Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) v1.1

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1996freeware

Angband

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1992freeware

Arachne WWW

DOS1996freeware

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...

Arj

DOS1990

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.