Shareware: a business model

Space Miner is a 1983 DOS game built around the classic science-fiction fantasy of heading into space and extracting valuable resources. The player pilots a spacecraft through dang...

Spacewar is one of the earliest digital computer games and is often considered the first interactive video game. It was created in 1962 by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne W...

Squarez Deluxe! is a 1993 puzzle game built around colored blocks, careful positioning, and the increasingly dangerous realization that your apparently brilliant move has just ruin...

Stargunner is a 1996 side-scrolling shooter that delivers fast, colorful space combat with plenty of enemies, explosions, weapons, and screen-filling chaos. The player pilots a hea...

Subhunt puts you beneath the waves for a naval combat experience where finding the enemy can be almost as important as destroying it. The submarine setting creates an interesting a...

Super Battleship brings the classic naval guessing game to the computer, adding enough extra rules and presentation to make sinking ships feel slightly more official. Players deplo...

Super Bubble Mania is a cheerful arcade-style game built around bubbles, movement, quick reactions, and the sort of colorful action that makes it dangerously easy to say, “Just o...

Super ZZT expands the classic ZZT concept into a larger adventure and creation toolkit, giving players worlds to explore as well as tools with which to build their own. The game co...

Before Worms, before Scorched Earth, there was Tank Wars. Two or more tanks perched on random hills, firing explosive math problems at each other. Adjust your angle, set your power...

Temple of Kroz blends puzzle-solving with arcade reflexes, creating a strange but compelling hybrid. You navigate traps, monsters, and bizarre hazards while collecting gems and try...

Terminal Velocity is all about speed, freedom, and blowing things up while flying at ridiculous velocities. The open environments give a sense of scale rarely seen at the time, and...

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 ...

The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian is a title that feels like it was generated by rolling dice on a fantasy word table, and somehow that’s part of its ...

The Aethra Chronicles is a fantasy RPG that leans heavily into its world-building, offering players a rich setting filled with lore, quests, and plenty of opportunities to get lost...

The Big Three is an unusual sports title centered on the three major American sports traditionally associated with the phrase: football, baseball, and basketball. Released in 1989,...

The Final Crusade of Kroz continues the tradition of the Kroz games with another top-down adventure packed with mazes, monsters, treasures, traps, and enough dangerous corridors to...

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...

Tubular Worlds is a fast-moving horizontal shoot 'em up that throws the player into a colourful science-fiction landscape packed with enemies, projectiles, obstacles, and the occas...

Tyrian 2000 is what happens when a classic shoot ’em up decides to go all in and then some. Released in 1999, it delivers relentless action, an absurd variety of weapons, and mor...

UnReal World is a survival experience that takes its premise very seriously, perhaps more seriously than you expected. First released in 1992 and evolving over time, it places you ...

Wolfenstein 3D is one of the landmark first-person shooters, placing players behind the eyes of an Allied soldier fighting through Nazi strongholds packed with guards, dogs, secret...

Wolfenstein 3D: Mortal Kombat Edition combines the fast-paced first-person shooting of Wolfenstein 3D with the characters and imagery associated with Mortal Kombat, creating exactl...

Xargon is a platformer that feels like it was built with equal parts creativity and cheerful chaos. Levels are packed with secrets, strange enemies, and mechanics that sometimes se...

Xatax is a no-nonsense arcade shooter that focuses on delivering fast, straightforward action without unnecessary distractions. You pilot your ship through waves of enemies, dodgin...

Xenophage: Alien BloodSport is a fighting game that leans heavily into its bizarre premise, featuring grotesque alien combatants battling it out in brutal arenas. It is unapologeti...

Xixit is a puzzle game that feels like it is constantly trying to outwit you, presenting challenges that require both logic and a bit of creative thinking. It does not rely on flas...

Despite the baffling title (Book I – Chapter 2, yes, really), this is a charmingly earnest old-school RPG. Think “Ultima clone with extra oatmeal” and you're clos...

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...

ZZT (1991, DOS) looks like it was drawn by an enthusiastic ASCII artist with too much time and not enough colors. And yet, it’s brilliant. Part action game, part puzzle adven...