abandonware games sorted by popularity

Few games from 1994 dared to ask the real question: “What if you gave an axe to someone with absolutely no training and dropped them into a dungeon with the reflexes of a slo...

Dungeons & Dragons meets Disney on a sugar rush. Tangled Tales is a bright, humorous RPG that cheerfully pokes fun at fantasy clichés while still serving a solid adventu...

The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time is the third chapter in The Journeyman Project series. It's a science fiction adventure game developed by Presto Studios, designed by Phil ...

If Low Blow (1990, DOS) teaches you anything, it’s that boxing doesn’t always require finesse — sometimes you just mash the punch button until your opponent stops...

Before Virtua Tennis, there was this: 4D Sports Tennis, where physics and pixels politely shake hands and then forget why they were introduced. Released in 1990 for DOS, this game ...

“Want some rye? ‘Course you do!” If that line triggers PTSD, congrats: you’ve played Return to Zork. This not-quite-sequel turns the beloved text adventure ...

Don’t be fooled by the name—Amazing Maze is more of a slightly-better-than-average maze. But hey, in 1983, navigating a screen full of walls and hoping you guessed righ...

Tapper is what happens when someone gamifies bartending and gives you the reflexes of a caffeinated octopus. You’re a mustachioed bartender juggling multiple counters, pourin...

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...

Battlespire is the weird, dark cousin of the Elder Scrolls family - the one who shows up late to the reunion with a sword and no pants. This first-person RPG strips out all the com...

Welcome to Tass Times in Tonetown, where the ‘80s collided with science fiction and nobody cleaned up the mess. It’s a bizarre adventure full of punk hairdos, neon colo...

Conqueror is what happens when a tank simulator and an arcade game go on a date and forget their purpose. You drive a tank in a pseudo-3D landscape, blow up stuff, and command squa...

Based on the cult fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, 9 Princes in Amber is a 1985 text adventure that assumes two things: you’ve read the books, and you enjoy typing things lik...

Imagine Marble Madness had a caffeine overdose and fell into a platformer. That’s Bumpy’s Arcade Fantasy. You control a perpetually bouncing ball named Bumpy (creative,...

With Battle Isle 2200 (1994), the series goes full 3D cinematic—with cutscenes so dramatic you’d think they were auditioning for a soap opera in space. The gameplay is ...

In Commander Keen 5: The Armageddon Machine, Keen infiltrates a massive space station engineered to obliterate planets like it’s swatting flies. This is Keen at his most tech...

Masterblazer (1991) is one of those games that feels like it escaped from a late-night coding session fueled by coffee, crisps, and questionable design decisions — and someho...

Before the IOC cracked down on fun, Caveman Ugh-Lympics gave us the primeval sporting event we never knew we needed. Clubs, fire, and the 100-meter mate drag—yes, that’...

Secret of the Silver Blades is a fantasy RPG set in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons universe, developed and released by SSI Strategic Simulations Inc. in 1990 for DOS, Macintos...