12 Amazing Terminal Based Games for Linux Enthusiasts

When you are a Linux power user, it is always mandatory to master using the command-line, since using commands to control the system offers a system user more power and control over the Linux system.

Therefore, for System Administrators and also other system users who love to operate from the terminal, this comes along with spending so much time on the terminal, which to many is not so interesting, even considered to be boring. And, just to do away with the terminal boredom, and dive away from the commands a little, you can keep your self entertained with some Linux terminal games, that is if you love playing games.

There are countless number of terminal based games you can find on Linux and in this article, we shall look at some few of the most interesting ones, although the list is endless.

Suggested Read: 15 Best Linux Games of 2015 – You Must Try Right Now

1. Nudoku

Nudoku is a terminal-based Soduku game for Linux. In Noduku, a player is required through logic to fill-up a 9×9 grid with numbers 1 to 9, just as any other game, it has different levels of difficulty from simple to advanced levels.

To install Nudoku on Linux, run:

# yum install nudoku      [On RedHat based systemes]
# dnf install nudoku      [On Fedora 23+ versions]
$ sudo apt-get install nudoku  [On Debian based systems]

Visit Homepage: https://github.com/jubalh/nudoku

2. 2048-cli

2048-cli is a simple yet interesting terminal game, it is a terminal implementation of the popular GUI-based 2048 which is based on 1024 and theoretically has properties of Threes, which is a cross-platform, tiny puzzle smart phone game on iOS, Android and Windows phone.

To install 2048 Game on CentOS, RHEL, Scientific Linux and Fedora, run:

# yum install 2048-cli-nocurses
# dnf install 2048-cli-nocurses   [On Fedora 23+ versions]

On an Ubuntu/Debian system, you can install 2048 Game via:

$ sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev
$ sudo apt-get install 2048-cli

Visit Homepage: https://github.com/tiehuis/2048-cli

3. MyMan

MyMan is another easy-to-play text based game on your Linux terminal. Its development was highly influenced by the Japanese game development company, Namco’s famous Pac-Man game. It can run on several other Unix-like operating systems including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and many more.

Visit Homepage: http://myman.sourceforge.net/

4. Greed

Greed is a clone of Pac-Man and Tron similar to MyMan above, but it offers colored text interface.

A player uses the keyboard arrows to eat as many digits as possible in any direction as he/she moves, the number of digits eaten equals to the number of steps in a particular direction.

You can install it on Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint systems as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install greed

Visit Homepage: http://www.catb.org/~esr/greed/

Suggested Read: 5 Best Linux Gaming Distributions That You Should Give a Try

5. Pacm4conesole

Pacman4console is a free terminal clone of the famous Pac-man game, developed by Mike Billars who wanted to play Pac-Man on the console to deal away with having to enable flash on a browser to play Pac-Man.

You can install Pacm4conesole game on Linux, using:

# yum install pacman4console
# dnf install pacman4console
$ sudo apt-get install pacman4console

Visit Homepage: https://sites.google.com/site/doctormike/pacman.html

6. Moon Buggy

Moon Buggy is an free, straightforward character game, in which a player controls a car over craters on th moon’s surface. You are simply required to side slide the car using control keys and jump over the craters to earn more marks.

To install Moon Buggy Game on Linux, run:

# yum install moon-buggy
# dnf install moon-buggy
$ sudo apt-get install moon-buggy

Visit Homepage: https://github.com/seehuhn/moon-buggy

7. Robot Finds Kitten

Robot Finds Kitten is also another free and interesting Linux terminal game, a player (robot) is required to check around different objects to find a kitten. A short description is displayed for every object that the robot inspects.

Visit Homepage: http://robotfindskitten.org/

8. nInvaders

nInvaders is a terminal version of popular GUI Space invaders game, here, players have to defend the earth from Space invaders by controlling war ships at the bottom of the screen (earth).

To install nInvaders Game on Linux, run:

# yum install ninvaders
# dnf install ninvaders
$ sudo apt-get install ninvaders

Visit Homepage: http://ninvaders.sourceforge.net/

9. Zangband

Zangband is a free, cross-platform, single player dungeon inspired adventure game. It is derived from Rogue hence the reference, a roguelike game. Instructions of how to play it are written in detail on the homepage.

To install Zangband Game on Linux, run:

# yum install zangband
# dnf install zangband
$ sudo apt-get install zangband

Visit Homepage: http://www.zangband.org/

10. Nethack

Nethack is also a cross-platform dungeons and dragons inspired adventure game, just like Zangband. It has both GUI and text interface, the main concept in Nethack is to discover the detail of a dungeon but not to kill all things in sight, which is the case with other dungeon-like games.

To install Nethack Game on Linux, run:

# yum install nethack-console
# dnf install nethack-console
$ sudo apt-get install nethack-console

Visit Homepage: http://www.nethack.org/

11. Linux Lunar Lander

Lunar Lander is an exciting terminal game on Linux, here, you required to fly a Lunar Module (LM) to the surface of the moon, where no penguin has ever gone before.

On successful landing, with a small amount of fuel in your LM tanks, this will be a great step for the penguin to live otherwise, it will just become any other crater in the lunar soil.

12. Secret Adventure

Secret adventure is a fun-filled, small adventure game that you can play on Linux and Mac OS X terminals. It runs within the Emacs text editor and you can access it from your Linux terminal.

Remember, you must have Emacs text editor installed on your system, then you can launch it by simply issuing the command below and enjoy:

$ emacs -batch -l dunnet

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There are countless number of terminal games you can install on Linux to keep yourself entertained, you can also let us know of some interesting and fun-filled games that keep you away from the Linux commands at the terminal.