Games with Character Graphics

Originally this page bore the title Games with ASCII Graphics, but that was not quite correct. ASCII graphics is a very specific term for an art form popular especially in the Unix world and denotes graphics that actually use only the ASCII character set, less than hundred signs. On the PC, this is a rare thing. ADOM is one game that uses ASCII graphics on all platforms.

But most PC games make full use of the extended IBM character set, which has lots of special characters for tables and statistic that can be used very well in games. Compare a screenshot of Rogue for DOS with ADOM, and you will see the difference.

The popularity of games with character graphics on the IBM PC peaked around 1990, probably because they would run—and look more or less the same—on all the graphics cards available for PCs at the time, even the monochrome ones, unless color was essential for gameplay. With the general adoption of VGA in the following years, character graphics became a niche genre among the fans of roguelike games and ZZT.

The 80s

Pac-Gal Pac-Man 82   Al J. Jiménez
The Queen of Hearts Maze Game Pac-Man US  
Ario Bros Arcade 83 US David Tretter
Beast Puzzle 84 US  
Computer Dots Dots   John E. Thayer
Othello Othello   Details unknown
Relentless Logic Puzzle US Conway, Hong, and Smith
Rogue Roguelike US  
8088 Othello Othello 85 US Michael W. Bayley
Hack Roguelike US Don Kneller
Turbo-Gomoku Gomoku US  
Yatzy Yahtzee No Ivar Gundersen
Pente Gomoku 86 US Michael A. Leach
Tetris Tetris Ru  
Bones RPG 87 US Bruce N. Baker
Pentis Tetris   M.T.M.
Yatzee Yahtzee Dk Bjoern Kroghore
Accordion Solitaire Cards 88 US Raymond M. Buti
Castles & Kings strat US Steve Hanson
Nyet Tetris US David Howorth
Pentix Tetris   Marta & Adrian Soncodi
NEW Tetris Tetris It  
A-Maze Arcade 89 US Wizard Games
Block Five Gomoku US Scott Miller
MaxIt MaxIt US Owen Gwilliams
The Battle of Kursk Strategy US Matthew Kowalski

1990: A Rise in Popularity

In 1990, there is a sudden boost in popularity for ASCII games. I have almost as many of them from 1990/91 as I have of the whole previous decade. What caused this, I do not know, but it may simply have been a rising popularity of the IBM PC as a hardware platform. 1990 was also the year that game development for Windows 3.1 started in earnest.

Blox Tetris 90 UK Graham Cluley
Da Tetris US Michael Heyda
Diamaze Puzzle US Steve Herring
Fusion Columns US William Chin
Majik   US Chris Bush
Popgames   US Geoffrey Silverton
Kroz Adventure US Scott Miller
Shogatsu Ishido US Alan Meiss
TetraFix Tetris US  
Crux Puzzle 91 US Bob Lancaster
Dr. Rudy Tetris US Kevin Jay North
Taktix Ataxx US Alan Meiss
ZZT Adventure US Tim Sweeney
Sqrtris Tetris   Au Software
Tiny Tetris Tetris Ru Alex Lochm
Wallgame Breakout Fi Jari Karjala

1992: Moving to Europe

Up to and including 1991, ASCII games were mostly a US thing. Beyond this year, the majority of the games is from Europe. This is not an uncommon pattern. You will find it, though less pronounced, with 16-bit Windows games as well.

Small Tetris Tetris 92 No Tore Bastiansen
Tiles Puzzle UK Daniel G. Rigal
Wari Mancala Nl Eric Roosendaal
DOSMine Puzzle 93 US David Vancina
ADOM Roguelike 94 De Thomas Biskup
MegaZeux GCS US Gregory Janson
Alphaman Roguelike 95 US Jeffrey R. Olson
4Tris Tetris 96 De Boris Sachsenberg
Gnasher3 Pac-Man Dk Jørgen Fog
Yahtzee Yahtzee US John Martin
Hungry? Ataxx 97 US MAD Software
Lentris Tetris 98 Se Lennart Johannesson
ASCII Invaders Space Invaders 01 US Corey Mercer
WormWars 3 Arcade 06 Dk Christian Knudsen
Tetris Tetris 08 Ua Sergey Smolyachenko

Final Notes

A special case is Edward Henigin's Minefind (1993) that uses ASCII graphics, yet runs in (hi-res) VGA mode. The graphics are used only for a border around the screen. ADOM and WormWars 3 are the only games I know that uses character graphics and have Windows versions.

It is possible to create action games using character graphics, but it has not been done very often. Apart from the roguelike games, character graphics were most popular for board game implementations like Othello and the various Monopoly clones. It should be noted that the original Tetris featured character graphics, as did some early clones.

Hardware

These games are probably the most unproblematic ones ever released for the PC. Most will look better on some sort of color adapter, a few may even require it, very few are truly monochrome. None of the games listed here uses custom characters, which would require VGA and was common for applications. Very few run in 40-column mode, which looks awkward in a monochrome setup.

I think ADOM is the only game to have a minimum requirement as far as processor speed or type is concerned, it needs a 386. Beast on the other hand is the only one that has problems with fast computers. The others will run on any PC at all. Since they can run in a DOS window, they are usually easier to play on new computers than other DOS games. Most of my screenshots were made under Windows 98 or even Windows XP.

Few of these games have any sound at all, and if they do, it is played over the PC speaker. None of them has any sound card support.

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