That reminds me of people doing 3-D engines in MegaZeux.

http://vault.digitalmzx.net/screens2/cde248323538306a9712eb9...

MegaZeux is a ZZT successor.

https://image.dosgamesarchive.com/screenshots/zzt4.gif

And uses ASCII characters. MegaZeux up'd the ante and allowed you to edit the VGA text glyphs so you could make "sprites."

Back-in-the-day Megazeux and ZZT were like their own dedicated systems, like software console systems. It was really fun to see what people did with incredibly constrained systems.