Knights of the Desert

Before WWII games flooded the market, Knights of the Desert (1983, DOS) was already reenacting the North African campaign in pixels. You command Rommel’s Afrika Korps—or their adversaries—through a harsh, tactical desert chessboard. There’s no glory here, just logistics, sand, and frustration. Still, for its time, it was an impressive attempt to capture strategy and realism on a machine that could barely handle multiplication. It’s a history lesson disguised as a game—and a surprisingly good one.