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rogueRemember those old games where the graphics were made out of letters and punctuation? Well, gentle reader, that is a text-mode game. The "graphics" appear to be somewhat archaic, but I assure you, they were bound only by the imagination of the brilliant programmers (and, of course, the extended ASCII character set). You will be amazed what some of these games can do with @ and * symbols.

Acknowledgments

Our Founder

This page is primarily the work of one person, me, although I have to recognize a few people who made this possible:

- William Cassidy and ClassicGaming.com, for taking the time to examine and approve my web site, answer my questions, and give constructive criticism.

- The people who responded to the Rogue article, which triggered a collective flood of memories folks had about text-mode games they played as youngsters, which eventually led to this page approximately seven months later.

- The people who created great shareware titles in hopes of making a few bucks and entertaining the masses. In a perfect society, you would be making lots of inexpensive software, and we would happily and voluntarily pay for it.

- Kurt Dekker, who I believe has created the coolest "graphics" out of characters, bar none. Try his Text Missile Command game in the Games and Utilities section.

- Anybody else I forgot.


This Site

There are some neat sites about text-mode games out there on the internet, but none with this many downloads to offer. Remember, this site is a file dump, not a content-rich media explosion. There will be occasional updates, added games, and maybe a game review now and then.

Why dedicate a site to these games? They are as classic as x-ray glasses, spud guns, and comic book ads where the skinny guy gets kicked around by a bully at the beach. The ASCII graphics of these games are truly an art form. In fact, there are several sites dedicated to ASCII art, and a utility that will turn a graphic into a decent ASCII representation.

The philosophy of "less graphics, more gameplay" is the law here. It's difficult to recreate what is intrinsically good in many of these games, and it can't really be broken down and analyzed. They're just good. These games are ageless and just as fun as ever because they were born obsolete. There is no graphical standard to compare them because they have no graphics!


Design considerations

In keeping with the old-school of text-mode games, this site is simple in appearance. On the old site everything was positioned using a style sheet, rather than tables. That was an experiment gone bad. Tables are good. They are what make web pages look presentable. I know that now.

The black background simulates the DOS screen, something you'll be getting familiar with when you download a couple of these games. Black is easier on the eyes and takes less energy to display. Remember, folks, the browser isn't a sheet of paper.

Everything I know about style sheets I learned at www.wdvl.com. This is a great resource, comparable to Webmonkey in content. Too bad that, back then, I hadn't heard about the best web learning resource on the web, www.w3schools.com

The animated gifs, if any, are created with a product called GIF Construction Set, a product made by Alchemy Mindworks. It is a shareware program. I have tried four or five such programs, and I find this to be the best of the bunch.

For general image manipulation, I use Adobe Photoshop. A powerful product, indeed. Clone stamp, anyone?

Speaking of powerful products, all HTML on this site was originally generated with Notepad. Thanks, Microsoft, for Notepad and Windows XP. All is forgiven. Now I use the excellent, nay, essential Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Dreamweaver.
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