What exactly defines text-based games?

[onyxthedog]

I have recently noticed that games that are labeled as text-based or Ascii contain quite a bit of graphical output, some examples are : Ganster Game (http://www.gangster-game.com) and Fallen Sword (http://www.fallensword.com/). If these games output so many graphics, how are they text-based? When you say text-based I think good ol' DOS. But what exactly defines a text-based game? I would think games like these would be more of strategy/rpgs rather than textbased.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

I guess everyone have their own definition, but my feeling on this is that just because a game feature a lot of text doesn't mean it's an Ascii game.

I'd probably go as far as saying that I don't consider it to really be text-based unless it's using the character set from DOS or the C64 or similar, and with the same color options that was available on the original platform :D But I think that definition is too narrow for most people :-)

[starstutter]

Personally, my definition of a text game is where the main controls are text, and words instead of single buttons. If rather than pressing 'E' , you say "get item" , that to me is a text game. It could have the most advanced graphics in the world and it wouldn't matter (although it would probably be an awful waste).