The best shareware games

By the time Exile III: Ruined World arrived in 1997, the series knew exactly what it wanted to be—and it delivered with confidence. This installment expands the scope dramati...

Galactix continues the grand space-shooter tradition with enthusiasm and a healthy disregard for your survival odds. You control a small but determined ship facing waves of enemy f...

Hovertank One is an early first-person combat game that places you inside a futuristic armored vehicle and sends you into hostile environments. The idea is delightfully direct: dri...

Released in 1996, Joyous Rebel is a lesser-known DOS title that combines action and adventure elements within a colorful fantasy setting. Players guide a determined protagonist thr...

Russian Front 2: The Kursk Campaign is a 1990 DOS strategy game focused on one of the largest armored battles of World War II. Players command forces during the Battle of Kursk, ma...

ShadowForce (1994, DOS) is what happens when someone decides subtlety is overrated and replaces it with explosions. This tactical action romp drops you into a near-future mess of m...

Ever wondered what would happen if a roguelike and a B-movie had a radioactive baby? AlphaMan is the answer. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where mutant banana slugs might be your...

No, not that Battlestar. Battlestar (1996) is more obscure than a reboot that never happened. Set in deep space with a top-down view and UI only a Windows 3.x user could love, it m...

Before Doom, there was Catacomb Abyss, where you throw fireballs down corridors at zombies who all apparently graduated from the same school of slow shuffling. It's a first-person ...

Tetris (Academysoft) from 1996 feels like the classic puzzle formula got a slightly more polished suit but kept the same addictive soul. The gameplay is instantly familiar: blocks ...

Exile II: Crystal Souls is the kind of RPG that quietly sneaks into your life and then refuses to leave your thoughts. Released in 1996, it looks humble, even a bit scruffy, but be...

Monopoly brings the classic board game of property, rent, and increasingly strained family relationships to the computer. Players buy streets, build houses, negotiate trades, and a...

If Doom and Laser Tag had a baby raised by dial-up modems, it would be 3D Cyber Blaster. Released in 1992, this shooter has you blasting neon enemies in a world that looks like a T...

Ever wanted to shoot a giant caterpillar in the face? CHAMP Centipede is your chance. It brings back that bizarre arcade energy where bugs, mushrooms, and bullets coexist in perfec...

As the name suggests, EGA-Roids is a colorful take on the classic Asteroids formula, adapted for the EGA era. You pilot a ship through space, blasting rocks and dodging debris in f...

In The Tyrants of Thaine, the graphics get a modest upgrade, but the soul remains pure: this is RPG comfort food. You’re once again cast as the world's most overworked advent...

In Search of Dr. Riptide from 1994 is a science-fiction adventure with enough eccentricity to fill several galaxies. Players investigate mysteries, solve puzzles, and generally que...

Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom shifts the setting to a more exotic environment, adding variety to the familiar formula. Released in 1992, it introduces new challenges, new puzzles, and a s...

Released in 1994 (long after it originally debuted on other platforms), Ant Attack! is what you get when you mix isometric graphics, giant ants, and questionable urban planning. Yo...

Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom has perhaps the greatest title-to-content ratio in gaming history. Released in 1995, it embraces absurdity with every pixel, delivering ar...

Epic Pinball is what happens when a small team says, “Sure, let’s make a pinball game,” and accidentally creates one of the most addictive shareware hits of the d...

In Ancients 1: Deathwatch, you gather your pixelated party and set off to cleanse a city of evil, or at least try not to get mugged by slimes. It's a dungeon crawler in classic DOS...

CHAMP Pac-em is a Pac-Man-inspired arcade game built around the familiar pleasure of navigating mazes while collecting items and avoiding enemies. Anyone who has ever confidently e...

In Druglord, you’re back on the mean streets, older, wiser, and with slightly better ASCII. Think of it as Drug Wars’s bigger, nastier cousin. You start broke, deal wit...

Grand Prix is one of those games that tries to bottle the thrill of Formula racing and pour it into a DOS machine that wheezes like an overworked engine. In Grand Prix, you get a s...

Kingdom of Kroz is a delightful blend of action, puzzle solving, and exploration that quickly became one of the defining entries in the famous Kroz series. Armed with limited resou...

Legend of the Red Dragon (1989) isn’t so much a traditional game as it is a slice of online history. This BBS door game allowed players to log in, fight monsters, flirt with ...

Moraff's Morejongg takes the familiar tile-matching concept of Mahjongg Solitaire and expands it with a broad selection of layouts, variations, and challenging puzzles. The basic i...

Nitemare 3D is a 1994 first-person shooter that takes the basic idea of exploring dark corridors and adds monsters, weapons, magic, and enough supernatural unpleasantness to make t...

Traffic department 2192 imagines a future where keeping the streets safe apparently requires considerably more shooting than most traffic departments would recommend. The game comb...