abandonware games sorted by popularity

More illustrations, more intrigue, more doom. The Crystal of Doom continues the hybrid of comic-style storytelling and light role-playing with just enough choices to make you feel ...

Wing Commander: Armada takes the familiar space-combat formula and adds a strategic layer, turning the war against the Kilrathi into something considerably larger than a series of ...

Based on the popular D&D module, Curse of the Azure Bonds puts you in control of a party of adventurers cursed with magical tattoos that force them into dangerous quests. You&r...

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used ...

Murders in Venice sends players into the atmospheric world of Venetian mystery, where beautiful surroundings conceal a dangerous investigation. Players explore locations, question ...

Duck Hunt is a faithful remake based on the original light gun game Duck Hunt published by Nintendo in 1984. Duck Hunt was a shooting gallery game with a straightforward ...

Borland dBase 5 is a database development environment from the later years of the DOS and early Windows database era. It belongs to a long tradition of software that allowed users ...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Sorcerer is Infocom at its most mischievous. You play an apprentice wizard who wakes up from a hangover only to find your mentor missing and reality sligh...

By the time Earthworm Jim hit DOS, its reputation already preceded it, and it largely lived up to the hype. This is a platformer that thrives on absurdity: a worm in a spacesuit, b...

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...

Paperboy 2 expands the original concept by introducing new routes, additional hazards, and even more opportunities for suburban chaos. Delivering newspapers remains the central obj...

If Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon were a person, it would be that eccentric uncle who insists he once met a genie “for real.” This 1988 Arabian-fantasy adventure m...

Postal 2 takes the outrageous premise of its predecessor and expands it into a first-person sandbox where practically every ordinary errand can become an excuse for complete chaos....

Welltris takes the familiar falling-block formula and turns it sideways, quite literally. Released in 1989, this Tetris-inspired puzzle game presents a three-dimensional well into ...

Face Off! (1989) wastes no time telling you exactly what it wants to be: fast, noisy, and slightly unhinged. This DOS arcade sports game throws subtlety out of the window and repla...

Quattro Pro v4 is a mature DOS spreadsheet application from Borland, designed for serious number crunching and business work at a time when spreadsheets were becoming indispensable...

Great Naval Battles: North Atlantic 1939-1943 sets the stage for the series with a focus on tense, strategic encounters. In Great Naval Battles, you are dealing with limited inform...

World Games is a collection of unusual sporting events designed to prove that the Olympics did not have a monopoly on strange ways of hurting yourself. Instead of concentrating on ...

Pacific General is a 1997 turn-based strategy game that shifts the acclaimed General series toward the vast naval and island campaigns of the Pacific during the Second World War. P...

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...

Yes, it’s that Beethoven—the slobbery St. Bernard, not the piano guy. In Beethoven 2, you control a surprisingly agile dog on a quest to rescue your kidnapped puppies. ...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to sit in a metal tube underwater while depth charges rain from above, Das Boot: German U-Boat Simulation has you covered. Releas...

The Fool's Errand is an unusually imaginative puzzle adventure that wraps dozens of logic challenges inside a strange, interconnected storybook world. Instead of simply presenting ...

Celtic Tales (1995) throws you into the misty, myth-soaked hills of ancient Ireland, where diplomacy is just war with more steps. You’re a clan leader trying to outwit druids...

Borland Paradox 4.5 was a powerful relational database system aimed at users who needed more than a simple spreadsheet but did not necessarily want to become full-time database eng...

If you ever wanted to pilot a hovering tank while yelling at a computer screen, Nova 9 has you covered. A sequel to Stellar 7, it puts you in the cockpit against Gir Draxon’s...

Forget piracy—China Sea Trader makes hauling porcelain and spices across 19th-century Asia feel like a cutthroat business. It’s part economic sim, part geography lesson...

In 1991, Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. continued the misadventures of its perpetually unlucky protagonist with another humorous point-and-click adventure. This time, Les navigates th...

In Reunion, you return to a solar system that’s moved on without you—like showing up to your own birthday party two centuries late. Your mission? Rebuild civilization, ...

The Usurper is a fantasy action game built around the classic computer-game recipe of dangerous dungeons, hostile creatures and a hero who apparently has nothing better to do than ...