Nibbles (QBasic game)
Ranked 4 of 4 terminal games by recommenders
A small snake game shipped with Microsoft QBasic that many people first learned programming from and remember fondly.
A small snake game shipped with Microsoft QBasic that many people first learned programming from and remember fondly.
5 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Taught people to program
“GORILLA.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS were the gateway drugs for many future programmers”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Donkey.bas is 45 Years Old – 131 line of Glory” “I learnt to program by fiddling with these.”
Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “David Ahl's Basic Computer Games Ported to C” Fond memories of playing it
“I played it with other people on my XT-class laptop in high school.”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Donkey.bas is 45 Years Old – 131 line of Glory” “I'm more of a Nibbles guy myself”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Cartoon Network Flash Games”
Other terminal games people recommend
The three most recommended other terminal games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QBasic Gorillas | 19 | 2 | 90% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Duskers | 8 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| Termcraft | 6 | 2 | 75% | 2 | — | — |
| Nibbles (QBasic game)This page | 5 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“GORILLA.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS were the gateway drugs for many future programmers”
“I played it with other people on my XT-class laptop in high school.”
“I learnt to program by fiddling with these.”
“the use of extended ASCII characters for the graphics in Nibbles.bas was legit next-level to me”
“I'm more of a Nibbles guy myself”
“it can count as a basic python benchmark”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.