abandonware games sorted by popularity

Gorillas, also known as "Gorillas.bas," is a turn-based artillery game that was included as a sample program with Microsoft QBasic, an IDE and interpreter for a variant of the...

Before apps, spreadsheets, and AI Dungeon Masters, there was Dungeon Master’s Assistant Vol. 1. Released in 1988, this tool was a digital sidekick for pen-and-paper D&D p...

Infocom really went off the rails with Nord and Bert, and bless them for it. This is a text adventure not about dragons or spaceships, but about puns. Yes, literal wordplay puzzles...

The last entry in Infocom’s Enchanter trilogy, Spellbreaker is where the training wheels come off. It’s unforgiving, cryptic, and expects you to understand spellcraft l...

Moonbase (1990) isn’t about blasting aliens or dodging meteors—it’s about survival, planning, and resource management. You’re tasked with building a functio...

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a cop who drifts around corners at 90 mph in a convertible, Cisco Heat is your kind of chaos. This arcade racer puts you in the shoes of a law...

Forget muscle cars and highways—Detroit (1994) is all about running your own automobile empire. Starting in the early 20th century, you’ll design cars, juggle productio...

Part action-RPG, part body-horror fairy tale, Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall (1995) is the game where you slowly transform into an insect and, somehow, that’s not even the...

Laser Squad is an abandoned turn-based strategy/tactical game designed by Julian Gollop (the mind behind the X-COM series). Laser Squad was developed by Target Games Limited and re...

Action Soccer (1995, DOS) is what happens when you try to make a soccer game fun without worrying too much about realism, physics, or gravity. The ball bounces like it’s fill...

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 r...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

Imagine Tetris went on a sugar binge and had an identity crisis. That’s Zyconix (1992, DOS) in a nutshell. It’s a tile-matching puzzle game where nothing quite behaves ...

Alien Breed: Tower Assault (1994) takes everything you loved about the original - creepy corridors, limited ammo, sudden death - and adds something revolutionary for the time: non-...

In Dark Designs 1: Grelminar’s Staff, you’re thrust into a classic fantasy dungeon crawler with an emphasis on text-driven menus and turn-based combat. It’s like ...

Dungeon of Shalan is one of those games that greets you with the words “You awaken in a dark room” and then proceeds to make that darkness your entire reality. Released...

The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici takes everything that worked in the original and polishes it until it shines like a freshly forged sword. The graphics are warmer, the maps are bi...

In Conflict: Europe, the Cold War goes hot, and you’re in charge of keeping things cool—or launching World War III. It’s a strategy game with a doomsday timer, wh...

Motorcycle racing has never looked so… polygonal. Team Suzuki puts you in the leather suit of a professional racer hurtling around pixel-perfect tracks. The controls are twi...