The most popular top down games

Master of Magic is a turn based 4x strategy game developed by SimTex and published by the well know Microprose, very similar to Civilization, with a fantasy twist. You play as a wizard and your objective is to evolve your race fro...

The Ancient Art of War is a classic video game that was released in the late 1980s. Developed by Evryware and published by Broderbund, it was available on various platforms, including Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The Anc...

SimAnt is a life simulation and strategy game developed by Maxis, released in 1991, and part of the "Sim" series. Created by Will Wright, SimAnt focuses on simulating the life of an ant colony. In SimAnt, you play as the blac...

Just when you thought Keen could catch a break, Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle drops him into a mystical realm full of bouncing jelly beans and sentient toasters. This is where the series finds its sweet spot: colorful gra...

Before there was Baldur’s Gate or Skyrim, there was DND. This 1984 DOS dungeon crawler is as old-school as it gets, complete with ASCII graphics, endless hallways, and monsters that live entirely in your imagination. The gam...

Before its sequel, there was Dark Reign: The Future of War (1997), a forward-thinking RTS that introduced mechanics ahead of its time, like customizable AI scripts for units. The result was a game that demanded brains as much as r...

Empire Deluxe is a classic turn-based strategy game that was originally released in the early 1990s. Developed by Mark Baldwin and Bob Rakowsky of White Wolf Productions and published by New World Computing, it is a successor...

CivNet is a multiplayer adaptation of the original Sid Meier's Civilization game, released in 1995. It was developed and published by MicroProse for MS-DOS and Windows. This version of Civilization brought networked multiplayer ga...

Times of Lore is an abandoned action RPG designed by Chris Roberts, developed and released by Origin Systems in 1989 for DOS and many more 8 bit and 16 bit platforms. Compared to Ultima (the much more popular franchise also by Ori...

Darklands is what happens when medieval Europe gets even darker than it already was. This 1992 RPG drops you into the Holy Roman Empire, but don’t expect knights in shining armor—expect alchemy, witch trials, and demon...

Mageslayer is an action game developed by Raven Software and published by GT Interactive in 1997 for MS-DOS. It stands out as a top-down, hack-and-slash dungeon crawler inspired by games like Gauntlet, but with an original fantasy...

ADOM is what happens when a rogue, a wizard, and a hungry troll walk into a dungeon and never come out. Released in 1996, this roguelike classic is brutal, brilliant, and unapologetically text-heavy. Permadeath is the norm, the st...

Checkers for Windows is exactly what it says on the tin—checkers. But somehow, it turns this rainy-afternoon classic into a digital duel of patience and spite. No explosions, no cutscenes, no orchestral score—just pure...

Long before Minecraft let us build worlds, Adventure Construction Set handed you a digital Lego box and said, “Go nuts.” Want to make a dungeon full of orcs and ham sandwiches? Sure. A sci-fi epic with talking robots a...

If you’ve ever wondered what Bill Gates was doing before becoming a household name, Donkey BAS holds the answer: programming a game about avoiding pixelated donkeys on a highway. Released in 1981 as a BASIC demo, this so-cal...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully bizarre as it sounds. Instead of Britannia, you&r...

God of Thunder is a classic computer game developed by Adept Software and released in 1993. It's a puzzle platformer with a fantasy theme. In the game, you control Thor, the Norse god of thunder, on a quest to save Midgard (Earth)...

Released in 1995, Psycho Pinball is what happens when traditional pinball eats too much sugar and loses its mind. It’s loud, colorful, and gleefully unhinged, with four distinct tables full of traps, ramps, and absurd bonuse...

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is the first real-time fantasy strategy game from Blizzard Entertainment. Two separate story lines (Orcs and Humans) evolve with 12 scenarios per side telling the tale of the battle for the Kingdom of A...

Star Goose is a classic video game developed by Logotron and released in 1988 for various home computer systems of that era, including the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC. It is a top-down, vertically scrolling shoo...

The Temple of Apshai Trilogy is a series of classic role-playing games developed by Automated Simulations (later known as Epyx) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These games were among the earliest examples of computer-based RPGs...