do they actually mean text based? Or is it a figure of speech. I keep thinking of a game the is drivend by choices, choosed (a-d). The chose changes the outcome of the game. I guess what I mean is similar to an interactive story...

When I think of text-based, games like Zork pop into mind. They''re usually adventure games where you are given the description of a scene and you type what you wanna do like GO NORTH or USE SWITCH. These games can also be MUDDS played on telnet (think of Everquest without any graphics).

insert witty signature here

is it possible to give the user a selection of choices... similar to the example in my question??

When they say text based games they mean the Bulliten Board System types of games that used to be popular before the internet made it big. Games like Trade Wars, Legand of the Red Dragon, and similar. Look them up you can download them and play them localy if you wish to see what people mean by text based.

yes, just write it as a console program...

When they say text based games, they mean just that (Games that use only text - I made a poker game like that, it sucked without pictures)
Yes, I guess someone COULD make a game like a choose-your-own-adventure, but it would be a pretty stupid idea...

"I''ve learned something today: It doesn''t matter if you''re white, or if you''re black...the only color that REALLY matters is green"
-Peter Griffin

No no no... you guys got it all wrong...
This is a text based game:
http://webpages.mr.net/bobz/ttyquake/

Text-based games are not a stupid idea and they are very sucessful. Most text-based games are MUDs, or MU* rather.