If you want to translate (well, transcode really) from existing graphics to ASCII art, your best bet is aalib [1,2]. I'm unsure if curses/ncurses [3] is suitab

If you want to translate (well, transcode really) from existing graphics to ASCII art, your best bet is aalib [1,2]. I'm unsure if curses/ncurses [3] is suitable for game work, but it's another thing you might want to look at. If she has an interest in the creativity of character based art, it would be best to talk to Jason Scott [4] but realize some of the archived art scene text might be considered unsuitable for a 13 year old (even though I'm sure some of it was created by 13 year olds). Also, Jason would be a good person to ask about how character based graphics were done in old games. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAlib http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAlib [2] http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/aalib/ http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/aalib/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses [4] http://ascii.textfiles.com/ http://ascii.textfiles.com/ EDIT: It also might be fun to show her Star Wars in ASCII animation telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl