abandonware games sorted by popularity

It’s Pac-Man, except it’s… not. Cap Man is a low-budget clone with just enough charm to avoid immediate deletion. You’ve got the dots, the ghosts, the powe...

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...

In Bert and the Snake, you are Bert. And yes, there's a snake. That’s the plot. It’s a maze game from a time when naming conventions were refreshingly honest and graphi...

Ever wanted to combine your love for trivia with Old Testament knowledge and 256-color DOS graphics? Bible Builder is here to test your biblical memory one verse at a time. It's li...

An expansion to the original, Cossacks: The Art of War refines, expands, and generally cranks up the chaos. New units, new campaigns, and more ways to accidentally bankrupt your na...

18th Airborne is what happens when a military recruitment pamphlet and a tactical shooter have a baby. You’re thrown into the boots of a paratrooper with a mission, a gun, an...

Global Effect takes a slightly different angle, blending strategy with a more experimental edge. It’s not always clear what it wants to be, but that’s part of the appea...

Gunboat trades fighter jets for naval tension, placing you in command of a small but heavily armed vessel navigating hostile waters. The gameplay mixes simulation detail with actio...

Battlecruiser 3000AD (1996) is less a game and more a test of faith. Ambitious beyond reason, it promised total control of a massive starship—crew management, planetary landi...

In Core War Plus, programming isn’t just for making spreadsheets—it’s for virtual combat. You write tiny programs that battle for control of computer memory, turn...

Before management sims became a genre unto themselves, RAPCON tried its hand at turning air-traffic control into entertainment. Surprisingly, it works—if you enjoy stress. Yo...

Ballistix asks: “What if air hockey was controlled by futuristic cannons?” The answer: chaos. You frantically shoot pucks with directional blasts while the physics engi...

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 ...

Flash Gordon: Il Rapimento di Dale throws you into a pulpy sci-fi serial where subtlety is left at the airlock. Based on the adventures of the square-jawed space hero, the game lea...

If Star Trek Combat Arena had a motto, it would be “talk diplomacy later.” Released in 1989 for DOS, this game tossed Starfleet’s peaceful ideals right out the ai...