Nowadays, PC games resemble something out of a Hollywood special effects studio. Huge games that require gobs of space and memory and slow even the more powerful desktop PCs to a crawl are the norm, now. But it wasn't always so. Gaming has a long standing tradition even on old UNIX mainframes. Back before computers made noises (on purpose, that is), people were playing games on terminal windows. They were simple games, but they were fun. And you know what? They still are!
You'll probably find a group of games on your system called ``bsdgames'' or something similar. Sometimes, these programs don't always even work. But if one or more doesn't work, then report it to your local source for help and it shouldn't take much to get it working. Here are some of the old favorites.
fortune. This is one bsd game you probably do see every day. You might be using it to create signatures for your emails, or you might be seeing messages created by this program when you log into your system.
Something as simple as
#!/bin/sh header="-- \nMy Name me@mydomain.com \n=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=\n" quote=`fortune -s humorists` echo -e "$header $quote"
This tiny script creates a signature with a dynamicly generated tagline in your signature. Of course, this is just one idea; you can create far more ideas from this. You can use it as a MOTD (message of the day) that users see upon login, or you can modify your IRC client to spit out a fortune every time you enter or leave a chatroom. You get the idea.
hangman. This simple little game can be surprisingly amusing. Guess all the letters in the word before the little man gets hanged.
robots. Use your numeric keypad to move your little man away from the robots. Make the robots crash into each other, then lead the robots into the piles of junk. ``Warp out'' of the way if you must.
battleships. Type ``bs'' at the command prompt and see what happens! Amazing what you can do with a simple ascii display.
fish. Type ``fish'' and play the traditional children's card game of ``Go Fish!''
morse. Type ``morse'', and you'll be expected to type something on the command line. Whatever you type will be translated into morse code!
factor. Type ``factor N'' where N is some number you pick, and the program will spit back all the factors of that number. Also known as ``primes.''
snake. Another little ``robots'' like game where snakes chase you around.
grdc. This is a spiffy digital clock or ``grand digital clock'' for the curses terminal display. Try it! It's pretty spiffy.
quiz. This little professor game lets you choose a subject category and proceeds to test your knowledge of the topic. Topics include capitals, languages, morse code, mathematics, literature and poetry, UNIX commands, flowers, Star Trek, History, serial killers, uniform criminal code, and some other topics.
atc. Air Traffic Controller game. Try to manage a busy airport without crashing planes--all on a curses display!
bcd, ppt. Ever wonder how your parents programmed? Type one of these commands and see what your input would look like as a punch card or paper tape!
mille. Ever heard of Mille Bornes? Me neither. It's evidently a two-handed card game from Parker Brothers. Man mille if your curious.
backgammon, cribbage. I group these two together because I've never played either one. But, these games look pretty interesting and playable on a curses display.
caesar, rot13. These two programs work together to encrypt and decrypt ``caesar ciphers,'' or the encryption method used by Caesar, which was simple letter rotation.
pig. Translates standard input into pig Latin.
Role Playing Games (RPGs). UNIX is famous for these. They include, but are not limited to: wump, adventure, rogue, battlestar, larn, phantasia, hack, trek.
Needless to say, these are just a start. Many, many more games exist. I have only mentioned some simple games that can be played in a terminal window. More elaborate games with graphics include Tux Racer, Doom, Quake (1, 2, & 3), Heretic, and many more.
The games I've mentioned require very few system resources and offer a surprising amount of entertainment. So the next time you want to play but regret that you don't have a supported graphics card or a fast enough machine to play Quake 3, try one of these games instead. You'll be surprised at how much fun you can still have with simple games.