abandonware games sorted by popularity

Come one, come all, to the saddest circus ever pixelated. In Ballyhoo, you're stuck in a depressing carnival trying to solve a kidnapping while dealing with clowns, carnies, and th...

Set in a futuristic detective story, Martian Memorandum combines mystery, science fiction, and classic point-and-click adventure design into an engaging investigation. Private dete...

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? ...

D-Fend Reloaded it's one of the most user-friendly front ends for the popular DOS-BOX emulator. The installer download includes the latest versione of DOS-BOX and is available for ...

Lancelot (1988) is an action-adventure that draws loosely from Arthurian legend and very tightly from the difficulty school of “good luck.” You guide the famous knight ...

If Krazy Ivan (1996, Windows XP) had a motto, it’d be “Blow it up first, ask later.” You pilot a massive mech across post-apocalyptic battlefields, obliterating a...

Educational games often struggle to balance learning with entertainment, but Mario is Missing! takes an unusual approach by sending Luigi around the world to rescue his famous brot...

Hugo 2: Whodunit? continues the series with a mystery that is equal parts charming and perplexing. Released in 1991, it builds on its predecessor with improved visuals and a slight...

The Patcher 6.1 (1993, DOS) is one of those utilities-turned-experiences that makes you feel like a digital surgeon. Instead of saving lives, you’re poking around system file...

Xiphos is a space shooter that mixes straightforward mechanics with a slightly more tactical approach, encouraging players to think as well as react. It is not overly complex, but ...

Also known as The Crypt, Castle Master 2 is like the goth sibling of the first game—darker, moodier, and with more corpses lying around. The gameplay’s pretty much the ...

Hot on the heels of the first, Caverns of Kroz 2 (also 1989) doesn’t mess with the formula—it sharpens it. More puzzles, more monsters, more reasons to scream at fallin...

The Simpsons: Bart’s House of Weirdness is what happens when a platform game decides to take a holiday inside a surreal cartoon fever dream. You control Bart through two wild...

In Allan Border’s Cricket (1993), you get to live the thrill of... waiting. A lot. But when the action kicks in, it’s surprisingly engaging. Named after the Australian ...

Released in 1986, Dragons: A Challenge in Chivalry leaned more toward interactive storytelling than traditional gameplay. You weren’t just hacking at dragons—you were r...

Operation Bodycount sounds subtle, doesn’t it? Released in 1994, this shooter wastes no time letting you know exactly what it’s about: running around and, well, increas...

Ford Simulator 5 (1994, DOS) arrives with increased confidence, as though the series has fully embraced its unusual identity. The graphics are cleaner, the environments broader, an...

Released in 1989, this game has you exploring a tomb filled with ancient evils. Navigate through dark corridors, solve puzzles, and confront the awakening demons. It's like playing...

X-Fighter feels like one of those early experiments where developers were still figuring out what “space combat” should even look like. It is simple, direct, and unapologetical...