abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before rhythm games took over, there was Moonwalker (1989), where you play as none other than Michael Jackson himself, saving kidnapped kids by dancing enemies into submission. Yes...

If your idea of high-octane excitement involves wind direction, tacking angles, and sail trim, then American Challenge: A Sailing Simulation is your digital paradise. This 1986 DOS...

The Fourth Protocol is a 1985 interactive fiction video game inspired by Frederick Forsyth's 1984 Cold War spy novel of the same name. Developed by the Electronic Pencil Company an...

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...

Imagine being the captain of a space freighter crewed entirely by neurotic aliens, each with a personality straight out of a sitcom. That’s Psi 5 Trading Company in a nutshel...

King's Quest 3: To Heir is Human is a fantasy adventure game designed by Roberta Williams, developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1986 for DOS and for other platforms su...

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...

Based on a French comic series, Black Moon Chronicles (1999) is what you'd get if a fantasy novel and a real-time strategy game had a slightly awkward baby. The art is dark, the to...

Kroz returns, and with it, your CRT monitor’s worst nightmare: ASCII graphics! Return to Kroz takes you back to a time when @ meant “you,” and everything else was...

Starquake is a weird DOS science fiction platform game developed by Bubble Bus Software in 1988 and designed by Stephen Crow and Dave Collins. The Commodore 64 version bo...

From 1987’s text adventure golden age, The Lurking Horror proves you don’t need graphics to be terrified. You’re a student trapped on a snowy university campus du...

Don't Go Alone is the kind of title that doesn’t need a warning label—it’s the warning label. This horror-themed dungeon crawler from 1989 drops you into a world ...

Narco Police is a tactical action game developed by Dinamic Software and released in 1990. It was available on various platforms, including MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, and ZX Spectrum...