Text based gaming has been around since the very earliest days of computing. Using only text, players enter in another world, and explore, socialize, achieve and impose * in the game world. There is no sound, no flashy graphics, simply text. The good folks in the interactive fiction community offer a single-player experience (and thumping good quality writing), while the folks in the MU* community offer multiplayer text-based gaming experience! Check out the you tube video below which describes text based games very well. The video is advertising for a specific MUSH, but nonetheless, it is excellent introduction to MUSHing.



Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as computer games. In common usage, the word refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game with text-based input and output. The term is sometimes used to encompass the entirety of the medium, but is also sometimes used to distinguish games produced by the interactive fiction community from those created by games companies. It can also be used to distinguish the more modern style of such works, focusing on narrative and not necessarily falling into the adventure game genre at all, from the more traditional focus on puzzles. (source)

Please accept this as an invitation to join the text-based-gaming world...there's certainly something for everyone!

Here's some wikipedia other nice linkage: Adventure, Interactive Fiction, MUD's and MUSH'es, and a list of many text-based gaming servers.