Instead of having daring and exciting adventures among the stars, we’re put in charge of mopping the deck. In Planetfall, released in 1983, we play as Ensign Seventh Class serving on the S.P.S Feinstein – a starship of the Stellar Patrol. Some big quest have a very unheroic beginnings. It’s worth checking out if you feel nostalgic and despite the fact that it’s dated in so many ways, the playability didn’t suffer one bit. Still, no matter the version, Adventure is a milestone in game development. Since the game was released, it was changed and expanded numerous times by different authors, who added new challenges or rooms into it. The game uses a verb-noun parser and only typing appropriate commands can save us from the impending doom of getting lost in a labyrinth or a surprise death that can occur without any previous notification. It was the text-based production, involving an exploration of a cave, resembling the real Colossal Cave, but not free of supernatural elements like for instance dwarves.

The world-shattering breakthrough happened in 1976 when William Crowther wrote the game to cheer up his two young children after the divorce. After all, the whole genre was named after it. It’s only fitting to begin with the game that started everything. Among the many types and kinds of stories everyone is bound to finding something special.

Hopefully, this lists of little gems will be helpful on your quest to discover interesting productions that will stir your imagination. I decided to present you the thirty most interesting, at least according to me, titles in this genre. If you’re not afraid of figuring things on your own, typing your answers and reading walls of text, don’t hesitate to try the games on your own. So what would we get if we leave those and eliminate the visual side altogether (or almost altogether), relying just on text and our imagination? The answer is simple – interactive fiction (IF) aka text adventures! Even though this genre reached the peak of its popularity in ancient times of late 70’s and early 80’s, it has its devoted fans and supporters even to this very day. The story, the immersion, the memorable characters – those are the things we really dig.

30 Best Text-Adventures/Interactive-Fiction Games Over 5 DecadesĪs gamers, we know perfectly well that the graphics is not everything that counts.

Text based dos games