abandonware games sorted by popularity

Italicized title: J-Bird. Long before endless runners and mobile time-wasters became fashionable, this quirky little game asked players to guide a determined bird through a maze-li...

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...

Colorado (1990, DOS) drops you into the buckskin boots of a rugged frontiersman navigating the Wild West with guns, canoes, and questionable hygiene. Equal parts action and explora...

Joan of Arc places players in the role of the legendary French heroine during one of history's most turbulent conflicts. Released in 1989, this strategy game blends military planni...

If Hamlet had a sequel directed by a DOS programmer, Castle Elsinore would be it. This interactive fiction game drops you right into Shakespearean drama with murder, betrayal, and ...

Hole in One is golf distilled into its purest, slightly pixelated essence, where patience is key and frustration lurks behind every poorly judged swing. Released in 1995, it captur...

Ace of Aces (1987, DOS) is a game where you pilot a WWII plane via a series of still-image panels that suggest action more than deliver it. It’s like a flipbook with ambition...

Industry Giant 2 turns spreadsheets into entertainment, which sounds impossible until you realize how addictive it becomes. Released in 2002, this business simulation asks players ...

Tempest 2000 is a video game developed by Llamasoft and published by Atari Corporation. It was released in 1994 for DOS, Mac, the Atari Jaguar console, etc. Tempest 2000 is an enha...

Ever wanted to fight fire with... even more fire? Brimstone tosses you into a magical mess of spells, dungeons, and monsters who woke up on the wrong side of the crypt. It’s ...

In Arcade Volleyball (1987), two pixelated figures smack a ball over a net with all the grace of caffeinated stick figures. It's simple, it's bizarre, and it somehow manages to be ...

Released in 1993 for DOS, A320 Airbus is less “Top Gun” and more “Intro to Aeronautical Bureaucracy.” It’s a flight simulator so realistic, even real ...

As the name suggests, EGA-Roids is a colorful take on the classic Asteroids formula, adapted for the EGA era. You pilot a ship through space, blasting rocks and dodging debris in f...

Indenture is a small, relatively obscure DOS adventure that thrives on mood rather than complexity. Set in a bleak, oppressive world, it uses minimalistic visuals and text-driven s...

By 1999, Liero had become a cult favorite thanks to its frantic real-time battles between heavily armed worms. Unlike turn-based competitors, the action never pauses, creating chao...

In BC's Quest for Tires, you play a loincloth-wearing caveman who’s riding a unicycle through danger, because apparently that’s how courtship worked in 1984. The goal? ...

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 t...

Ever wondered what it would feel like to be trapped in a neon nightmare where physics and color coordination decide your fate? Color Balls (1996, DOS) is like a Rubik’s Cube ...

Stormlord is an abandoned DOS platform game set in a fantasy world, developed and published by Hewson Consultants in 1989 and designed by Raffaele Cecco. There was some controversy...

Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilit...