Was your game inspired by any existing DOS games?
Not so much an existing DOS game, but the aggressive nagware several shareware DOS games could be and their promises of better things in the 'REGISTERED' version which was never released, or at least does not exist in the present.

The game is also made in the 1991, DOS-based ZZT from Epic Megagames. The .ZZT file in the download can be played on a DOS machine.