Popular games built on game engine BASIC

Boulder Dash was originally released in 1984 for Atari 8-bit computers. It was developed and published by First Star Software, and spawned a series of sequels, re-releases, and spinoffs. It also did a great deal to establish and influence the mining genre of video games, which can be seen in modern games such as Minecraft, Spelunky, and Terraria.

Moonlander (also known as Lunar Lander) is an early computer game made for the DEC GT40 computer and is the first graphical game in the lunar landing simulator subgenre, as well as the first one in real-time. It is notable for being the first video game with an Easter egg, a lone McDonalds on the moon's surface that can be interacted with or destroyed.

Star Trek is a text-based strategy video game based on the Star Trek television series (1966–69) and originally released in 1971. In the game, the player commands the USS Enterprise on a mission to hunt down and destroy an invading fleet of Klingon warships. The player travels through the 64 quadrants of the galaxy to attack enemy ships with phasers and photon torpedoes in turn-based battles and refuel at starbases. The goal is to eliminate all enemies within a random time limit.

Hamurabi is a text-based game of land and resource management and is one of the earliest computer games. It was originally written in FOCAL in 1968, but it was ported to BASIC in 1971. Like many BASIC games of the time, Hamurabi was mainly a game of numeric input. As the ruler, the player could buy and sell land, purchase grain and decide how much grain to release to his kingdom.

Nobunaga's Ambition, the first of the series, was released in 1983. Players assume the mantle of either Nobunaga Oda or Shingen Takeda and strive to conquer the entire land (17 areas in the Kansai and central Japan region). They manage their country to make it rich, then prepare their military forces. These then attack and defeat surrounding Clans in battle.

An interactive fiction game / interactive fiction creation utility pre-dating the release of Colossal Cave Adventure.

Arquimedes XXI is a classic conversational adventure video game released in 1986 by the Spanish company Dinamic, which combines elements of science fiction and exploration. It is considered a classic in the history of video games in Spain and is remembered for its quality and complexity. It was one of the first commercial adventures in the country and laid the foundations for future developments in the adventure game genre.

Mugwump is an early video game where the user is tasked with finding four "Mugwumps" that are randomly hidden on a 10x10 grid. It is a text-based game written in BASIC. The user enters a pair of single-digit co-ordinates in the range from 0 to 9 which are the x,y coordinates to scan. If a mugwump is at that location then the user is alerted. Otherwise the user is told the distance from the scanned coordinates to each of the mugwumps that are yet to be found. The game ends after ten turns or when all of the mugwumps have been found.

These are C64 BASIC games the developer wrote as a teenager in the 1980's. They're slow, glitchy, and barely playable. BOUNCY BALL "My first attempt at what could be called a game. Uses joystick in port 2. Try to place blocks in the ball's path to score points." LOST MAZE "Text adventure/maze game. Complete." AMAZING MAZE "Graphical maze game, player controls animated sprite character. Uses joystick in port 2. Mostly complete." CHOPPER RAID "Unfinished horizontally scrolling shooter, similar to Activision's Chopper Attack." D&D "Simple dungeon crawler, uses custom characters. Uses joystick in port 2. Load & run "D&D", then follow the prompts. Complete." DEFLECTION "Breakout-style game. Uses joystick in port 2. Complete." PLANET DEFENDER "Invaders from space are attacking the planet. If they blast a hole in the ground, patch it by moving your ship over the hole. Uses joystick in port 2. Complete."

The first Basketball video game. You play against the computer in a text-based game of Basketball, with the ability to select both defensive setup and offensive plays each turn.

Cassette 50 is a compilation of 50 games that was released for a variety of 8-bit home computers, albeit with different selections of games on different computers. The majority of games within the collection were programmed in BASIC and are widely considered to be of poor quality.

A Pengo clone that was released as a type-in listing from issue 12-1 / 1987 of Computer Kontakt dated December 1986 / January 1987.

Help the caveman reach his beloved by crossing a territory full of dangers. Run on the wheel, jump and duck to avoid obstacles, such as holes, branches, rocks, etc. that will present themselves along the way.

Batnum, a portmanteau of "battle of numbers" is an early BASIC game based on the family of "object pile" games, which includes Nim. The player and computer take turns removing objects from a pile, with there being a set minimum and maximum amount of objects that can be removed per turn. The objective is to force the computer to take the last object.

In what is possibly the most baffling text adventure ever devised, navigate a surreal landscape with the aid of the Pi-Man in an attempt to discover the (real world) location of a golden sundial. Originally published in 1982.

A turn-based, strategic simulation of fourteen real battles of the American Civil War. In single player mode, you play as the Confederacy, while the computer controls the Union. Each turn you have to decide how to allocate your funds on food, ammunition and salaries and choose one out of eight strategies to use in battle (four offensive, four defensive). The sides with fewer casualties wins the battle, and whoever wins eight or more battles wins the war. The game was developed at Lexington High School by students L. Cram, L. Goodie, and D. Hibbard. In 1973, it was compiled and published on "101 BASIC Computer Games" by David H. Ahl, who credited G. Paul and R. Hess of "TIES" for adding a two-player mode

Highnoon is a BASIC game developed by Christopher Gaylo from Syosset High School, New York in early 1970 on a timeshared mainframe computer. The game is single-player and set in the Wild West in 1889. The objective of the game is a showdown between the player and Black Bart. The status of the game, actions available and results of each action are written to the system console as textual descriptions. Turns are taken to either move closer, run, or shoot. Both the player and Bart have four shots and the odds of hitting each other increase as the player closes the 100 paces between each.

A text-based game of 3D Tic-Tac-Toe against a computer opponent. Originally, the game printed out the game board on teletype paper. It was later updated to include a visual display of the game board.

An early computer simulation of American Football, written in BASIC. Players have a choice of offensive plays, and the game also incorporates many official rules, including penalties and the safety rule. Sometimes a dog will run on the field, interrupting play.

A Jetpac clone that was released as a type-in listing from issue 10-11 / 1987 of Computer Kontakt dated October / November 1987.