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Best command-line-only video games (2019)
- dusted 4y agoIs there a command-line version of dwarf fortress? Because the default version, though text-based is certainly not command-line compatible.
- salted-fry 4y agoOn Linux/macos, you can enable terminal output by setting PRINT_MODE:TEXT in init.txt
- Corazoor 4y agoYes! The game itself supports [PRINT_MODE:TEXT] in the ini. Depending on the version you might need a virtual x server to trick the game into starting though. Used that to run it via wine + quemu on my android phone, at a whopping 5fps at embark. Didn't play for long, but was totally worth it!
- Vvector 4y agoDF is noted in the article
- taviso 4y agoI can't believe it didn't mention my favorite, asciipOrtal
- anthk 4y agoMeh. No Nethack/Slashem, no DCSS, no BSDGames, no IF game beyond Zork such as Anchorhead or Spider and Web...
- kunwon1 4y agoI came here looking for DCSS. Anyone who likes roguelikes should take a look at it, if they haven't. It's actively developed, so you can play it once, come back a year later, and there will probably be new things to try. There's an active community, you can play over SSH with ASCII or over a webapp with tilesets or you can run it standalone on your PC. Magic, extremely varied gods that favor you with powers for your devotions (these can have a drastic impact on playstyle), huge variety of classes... I could go on.
- axiolite 4y agoOmitted MyMan, a Pacman clone: https://myman.sourceforge.io/ https://myman.sourceforge.io/ On Fedora just: dnf install myman
- remoquete 4y agoADOM, of course.
- dllthomas 4y agoNitpick, maybe, but I think it's worth maintaining a distinction between "terminal (or terminal emulator)" and "shell (or command line)". From a skim, these seem like games that run in the terminal usually spawned from a shell, but that is not the same thing as being "run entirely in your Linux shell." For the headline itself I think IF with a parser counts as "command line only", though it still doesn't run in your shell. I don't know of any games that run "in your shell" but a good example of the distinction is that mutt and pine run in a terminal, but nmh actually runs in the shell (not in the sense of processes but in the sense that the shell is what I am using to string together actions when I use nmh).
- catern 4y agoYes, I came here to say this, these are not command line games. I'm tempted to make some kind of gimmick website or Twitter account, "Not Command Line", which posts examples of this confusion...
- emmanueloga_ 4y agoAgreed... by nature a "command line game" would have to be turn oriented, I think. I was curious what kind of games where going to be linked here. It seems is mostly games that run on "text mode" on a terminal, as opposed to turn based games using the command line as UI. Counter example: command line tetris! [0]. Although... still gives the player the advantage of "freezing time" on every move :-). 0: https://github.com/mattbierner/Super-Template-Tetris https://github.com/mattbierner/Super-Template-Tetris
- dllthomas 4y agoIt doesn't need to be turn based, though it does need relatively self contained actions and avoiding unfortunate race conditions could be tricky. I once made a shell driven instant messaging (libpurple) client that could serve as a point of reference - incoming messages were reported with PROMPT_COMMAND, and reply would send a message to the sender of the last message reported rather than the last message received.
- 4y ago
- markus_zhang 4y agoI'm wondering if it's possible to run graphics games in terminal as in DOS?
- emmanueloga_ 4y agoThere's sixel [0] to display pics in text terminals. Also apparently the kitty terminal has a custom protocol to blit graphics on text terminals too [1]. There's a library with some impressive demos called "notcurses" if you are curious what kind of graphics can be displayed in a terminal ... the author uploaded some demos to YT showing the capabilities. It's been discussed in HN a bunch of times [2]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel 1: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol/ https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol/ 2: https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=notcurses https://hn.algolia.com/?q=notcurses
- tdeck 4y agoxterm has a vector graphics terminal emulator, although I've never seen any application that uses it. https://jirkasnotes.wordpress.com/2019/07/17/xterm-does-graphics-sort-of/ https://jirkasnotes.wordpress.com/2019/07/17/xterm-does-grap... Edit: a better demo: https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/tektronix.html https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/tektronix.html
- emmanueloga_ 4y agoPretty fascinating, I found the tip of the iceberg on XTerm's src [0] but it's kinda table driven so hard to tell what's going on :-). I just wanted to see exactly how much code was there in XTerm to support hardware that was popular between the 70s and early 80s.. [1] 0: https://github.com/joejulian/xterm/blob/defc6dd5684a12dc8e56cb6973ef973e7a32caa3/main.c#L2861-L2872 https://github.com/joejulian/xterm/blob/defc6dd5684a12dc8e56... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix_4010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix_4010
- classichasclass 4y agoAges and ages ago I wrote a 'ppmtotek' program that would display raster graphics on terminal emulators with Tek 4014 graphics. It worked somewhat but depended on quirks of the specific terminal emulator. I should dust it off anyway.
- programd 4y agoI'm going to hijack this thread and mention the modern spiritual cousin of terminal games (but not really a terminal command line game at all) "Caves of Qud" https://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/Caves_of_Qud https://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/Caves_of_Qud It's like Nethack, only weirder. In a good way. Don't let the Early Access label fool you. It's been around for seven years already and is highly polished, and getting weirder all the time. In a good way.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y agoI believe the beta came out in 2010 so it's a bit older than that. It's the greatest modern roguelike of this millennium.
- Zitrax 4y agoFrom https://freeholdgames.com/Press/ https://freeholdgames.com/Press/: Caves of Qud is a project of epic proportions that began in 2007 and launched on Steam Early Access in 2015.
- pyuser583 4y agoIt’s been way too long since I’ve been killed by a grue.
- the_af 4y agoSo you always keep your lights on?
- lelandfe 4y ago> Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead... The visuals may be incredibly simple, but the gameplay is deep and open-ended Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead also has a tiles mode that is actually pretty great. The community has done some amazing work: https://cataclysmdda.org/ https://cataclysmdda.org/
- intelVISA 4y agoCDDA is one of my faves, great community too.
- Gene_Parmesan 4y agoLast time I played (few years ago) there seemed to be some controversy about the direction the project lead was taking the game. Something about realism over fun. Did that ever get resolved in some fashion?
- intelVISA 4y agoBeen a while for me unfortunately, that dichotomy is not particularly new to games of this genre and I think the lead's done a reasonable job at balancing it; there's always mods that push it further in either direction.
- kerblang 4y agoIf you want a game you can play at a leisurely pace, robots: https://linuxcommandlibrary.com/man/robots https://linuxcommandlibrary.com/man/robots
- Waterluvian 4y agoNot sure it fits whatever definition is being used here but Cogmind is pretty amazing.
- huydotnet 4y agoWhere's Nethack, DCSS???
- guerby 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angband_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angband_(video_game) And Zangband :)
- guestbest 4y agoWas that the one you start at the bottom of Moria with all the monsters sleeping as level 1? I can remember playing it but I can’t find it on the variants page
- MCrekt 4y agoApsis Online - https://massivelyop.com/2022/01/10/whatever-happened-to-multi-user-roguelike-apsis-online/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/01/10/whatever-happened-to-mult...
- guerby 4y agoNot command line but I used to play it at my university in the nineties on Unix machines (and hacked /tmp files to create powerful artefacts) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_(1992_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_(1992_video_game) Some of the contributed levels are ... a map of my university and some monsters were teachers at the time :)
- JoeyBananas 4y agoI am a huge fan of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. I'm happy to learn it isn't the only viable terminal game out there. I will be trying Cataclysm.
- jonathankoren 4y agoStill think Sail and ATC from the BSD games pack were great.
- kbr2000 4y agoIndeed, bsd-games were not mentioned. Here's a list: https://github.com/msharov/bsd-games https://github.com/msharov/bsd-games There was Sleuth also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleuth_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleuth_(video_game) Personally I enjoyed IF like TATCTAE (Time: All Things Come To An End), Jigsaw and Curses! which where included in early GNU/Linux distributions (unbeknownst to me at that time that much other int-fiction was being created, since we were exploring the OS distributions offline, InfoMagic CDs etc.) Before that, BBS door games existed (much avoided because exhuberant dialup costs). Typing in BASIC source code from books lent from the library (mostly text-based games). My interest was piqued by MUDs at one point afterwards, but never really got active (again because of dialup costs to connect to the Internet).
- TheRealPomax 4y agoNitpicking, several years after the fact, but: most of these are not "command line" video games. They're terminal (and terminal emulator) games. "Zork", or even "Quest for Glory" are command line games: you play them by typing on the command line. The ones shown here (save Frotz) are not that.
- blowski 4y agoFor a lot of people, “terminal”, “bash”, “putty”, “cli”, “ssh”, “shell” are all interchangeable and equivalent terms.
- TheRealPomax 4y agoI do recall starting my comment with the explicit note that I'm nitpicking. If, to you, "command line games" just means "something I can run while in a terminal" then cool, but that's not technically what that term means, and we're technical people here on HN. Especially those of us who use (any flavour of) the terminal day in day out.
- flykespice 4y ago> and we're technical people here on HN and quite political it seems
- pastram_i 4y agoIt’s all I use but you can call it the “word window” for all I give a shit, nitpicking is just a synonym for argumentative+stubborn. Inb4 you nitpick the definitions.
- jasonm23 4y agoJumping onto a thread which you see as argumentative+stubborn, to point that out... including "for all I give a shit" Is a synonym for? Potential growth / reflection opportunity.
- dllthomas 4y ago
- lrenn 4y agoI just want someone to remake Solar Realms Elite/Barron Realms Elite...
- lrenn 4y agoHoly shit...I went goggling and the dude who wrote SRE was the same guy from google who coined the term "Don't Be Evil." http://breakintochat.com/blog/2013/02/18/amit-patel-creator-of-solar-realms-elite/ http://breakintochat.com/blog/2013/02/18/amit-patel-creator-...
- DrZootron 4y agoASCII sector looks supreme but link is broken. Anyone got link?
- defrost 4y agoThe Ascii Sector Wiki on fandom has the most recent d/load link from web archive .. and other discussion and resources: https://asciisector.fandom.com/wiki/Ascii_Sector_Wiki https://asciisector.fandom.com/wiki/Ascii_Sector_Wiki
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- corvettez0606 4y agoWhere is LoRD?
- every 4y agoNethack or go home... https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page
- mrob 4y agoI feel like Wikis and modern communication tools in general have made Nethack less fun. Nethack represents one extreme of roguelike design philosophy, where the focus is more on exploring and discovering things than solving tactical puzzles. The phrase "the dev team thinks of everything" illustrates this well; the game is full of interactions that are fun to discover and add to the illusion of exploring a world, but don't actually contribute to winning or losing. You can easily break the game, i.e. find techniques that make large parts of it pointless, and that's acceptable because the joy of discovering them makes up for that loss. If you read Wikis and watch expert players then you will never experience it and be left with only an easy and boring game. The other end of the spectrum is DCSS, which sacrifices this sense of wonder to produce a tightly designed tactical challenge. There's little need for an external Wiki because that kind of information is built into the game. You can look up any entity in the game and get detailed information about its abilities. All useless/boring/unbalanced interactions are removed even if that makes the world less believable, e.g. you cannot sell items to shops, because that would necessitate tedious tracking of all junk items to recover their value, and the traditional roguelike "food clock" was replaced by an explicit countdown clock, because optimizing food usage so rarely made a difference (Nethack includes food, but also many methods to make it irrelevant). Assuming a skilled player, DCSS is the more difficult game. I recommend playing both, but in the case of Nethack, only if you keep spoilers to a minimum. (Zero spoilers is unnecessary. I believe the game was originally designed around the assumption that players would be sharing information about how to win. Only improved communications have made this sharing too powerful.)
- zoeey123 4y agoMissing nethack
- intrasight 4y agoThe first time I used a computer was also the first time I played a computer game. And I'll call it a "command-line" game as it was played on a teletype machine. "Star Trek" first came out in 1971. I probably played it in 1972-3 when my father brought home from work a teletype machine. All I remember doing is launching a photon torpedo and destroying a planet. For me it was (and still is) the best command-line-only game. Am I nitpicking to point out that there's no such thing as a "command-line-only video game"?
- dllthomas 4y agoGiving credit where it's due, the article mentions Infocom (to which I'd add -style) interactive fiction, which I think solidly count as command-line-only video games even if the command line in question is internal to the game.
- intrasight 4y ago> is internal to the game How's that work?
- dllthomas 4y agoThe interface for one of those games is entirely text (sentences, not ascii art) presented before a prompt where you type a command, which will provoke more sentences and another prompt. I think it's perfectly legitimate to call that a command line, even if we might want to distinguish it from "the command line".
- joshenders 4y agoWeird. Expected this to be a 404
- sabalaba 4y agoSurprised no mention of New Worlds Ateraan, a great MUD. Just need telnet.
- classichasclass 4y agoI've really got to push out my command-driven Mille Bornes text game.
- sbf501 4y agoI used CoolRetroTerm a few times during Zoom screen shares and people thought it was hilarious. It's such a fun nonsense app!
- bawolff 4y agoWeird to have a list of command line games and not even mention nethack. Like maybe its not interesting to mention because everyone knows it, but still. It'd be like having a list of best fantasy novels and not mentioning lord of the rings. Its just odd. Even if you disagreed, its so famous that they would probably say why they dont think it doesn't make the list.
- begoon 4y agoAfter some fiddling I have built Moon Patrol on macOS. I was curious why a text mode program requires X11 and libpulse libraries. I had to install xquartz. But overall, I salute the author of AsciiPatrol ;-). Kudos!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Emigre_ 4y agoOn this topic, there is still a community of players and creators around adventure games (or 'interactive fiction'). Check ifdb.org for reviews and recommendations. I'd say modern IF games are often more playable than classic games, which are in some cases really unforgiving in this particular genre. These are some of the games I would recommend: 'Fate' by Victor Gijsbers, 'Floatpoint' by Emily Short, 'Galatea' also by Emily Short, 'Photopia' by Adam Cadre, 'Aisle' by Sam Barlow, and 'Nightfall' by Eric Eve.
- antihero 4y agoWhat about Discworld and other MUDs? Had a lot of fun with that back in sixth-form college.
- hulitu 4y agoWump is missing.