The best shareware games

Shareware is a type of software distribution model that allows users to try a program before purchasing it. It's a marketing strategy and distribution method that was particularly popular in the early days of personal computing, primarily during the 1980s and 1990s.
Shareware games were released for free with limited functionality (for example: no saving, missing levels, time limit), often via a BBS (Bulletin Board System), a floppy disc or a CD included in a printed magazine or by direct download (when internet was in its infancy). If the user liked the shareware product, they could pay to obtain an upgrade and unlock the full game. When digital distribution started to become popular, shareware games slowly faded into oblivion.

Sort by:

Borderworld

DOS1996 Midlothian Software

Borderworld (1996, DOS) is a sci-fi RPG with big ideas, a tiny budget, and enough ambition to fuel a space shuttle. You’re thrown into a galaxy of politics, smuggling, and star-hopping adventure, where everyone has a quest and most of them are either morally questionable or just plain weird. The visuals are dated even by mid-’90s standa...

Capture the Flag

DOS1993

Dungeons of Kairn

DOS1989

Assault Trooper

DOS1997 Webfoot Technologies

In Assault Trooper, you're the lone soldier with enough ammo to make Rambo blush, dropped behind enemy lines to shoot first and ask “was that a civilian?” later. This 1997 top-down shooter screams “keyboard-mashing catharsis,” offering a blend of stealth, strategy, and full-auto chaos. The missions are varied, the enemies pl...

8088 Othello

DOS1985

There’s something oddly poetic about 8088 Othello, a 1985 take on the classic board game that feels like it was programmed by someone who had a personal vendetta against flashy graphics. The visuals are almost nonexistent, the sound is silent protest, and yet - somehow - it works. This is Othello in its purest form: black versus white, brain ...

Hugo 2: Whodunit?

DOS1991protecteddemo Gray Design Associates

Hugo 2: Whodunit? is an old school graphic adventure game designed by David P. Gray, developed by Gray Design Associates and released in 1991 for MS-DOS only. Hugo 2: Whodunit? is the second installment of the Hugo game series.

Castle Elsinore

DOS1992 Temple Software

Tubular Worlds

DOS1994

Moraff's Revenge

DOS1988 Moraffware

Aspetra

DOS1996

Welcome to Aspetra, a 1996 DOS game that tried to cram an epic sci-fi RPG into your beige box PC — and mostly succeeded! Think “Star Trek meets budget constraints.” You explore strange new worlds, meet weirdly specific aliens, and solve puzzles that are either insultingly simple or brutally cryptic, no middle ground. The UI is... ...

Blackstar: Agent of Justice

DOS1995

In Blackstar: Agent of Justice (1995), you play a noir-style detective in a trench coat so dramatic it probably has its own union. Set in a dark, crime-ridden city where everyone talks like they’ve swallowed gravel, it’s a point-and-click game with a gritty tone and a suspicious number of cigarette-smoking NPCs. Expect interrogation, cl...

Bolo Ball

DOS1992 Soleau Software

Bolo Ball is a DOS game from the mid-1990s. It features a physics-based gameplay where the objective is to knock opponent balls out of an arena. When you start the game, you find yourself in a 2D arena set against a starry, space-like background. You control a colorful ball, which, despite being a 2D sprite, appears somewhat three-dimensional due t...

Clyde's Adventure

DOS1992freeware Moonlite Software

Hovertank One

DOS1991 id software

Ken's Labyrinth

DOS1993freeware

King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table

DOS1994 MVP Software

Moraff's World

DOS1991 Moraffware

Squarez Deluxe!

DOS1993freeware Adept Software

Super Battleship

DOS1988

Super ZZT

DOS1992 Epic MegaGames

Meteor Mission

DOS1995

Space Miner

DOS1983

Flying Tigers 2