abandonware games sorted by popularity

Block O Mania is what happens when a Rubik’s Cube and a sliding puzzle fall in love during a rave. Released in 1989 for DOS, this game will twist your brain into shapes it wasn’t designed for. The goal? Push blocks. Lo...

Iron Blood (1996, DOS) is the kind of fighting game that makes you wonder if robots really need martial arts lessons. The story is wafer-thin—something about futuristic warriors clashing in metallic arenas—but the fun ...

1999’s BitStorm is what happens when someone decides to make a strategy game and forgets to put the brakes on the caffeine. It’s fast, it’s furious, and you’ll probably lose your first five games before rea...

If Dungeons of Kairn were a person, it’d be that quiet D&D player who never smiles and always plays lawful evil. Released in 1989, this obscure DOS crawler delivers all the dark fantasy grit you can handle—tight co...

Dungeons of Kroz 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel—it sharpened it and rolled it over your face. Released the same year as the original, it’s tougher, faster, and even more unpredictable. New traps, nastier monsters, a...

In Nomad, you’re a space pilot with a ship full of bad decisions and a galaxy’s worth of trouble. The game throws you into a vast star map to explore, trade, and occasionally get blasted to atoms by pirates. There&rsqu...

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, really. Armed with iconic moves and a bit of mag...

Ishido (1990, DOS/Mac) is the digital version of sitting in a Zen garden and realizing you’re terrible at strategy. The game’s premise is simple: place stones on a grid according to color and symbol, trying to match th...