abandonware games sorted by popularity

Soccer Kid is a colorful 1995 platform game in which football becomes an unlikely weapon against a rather unusual collection of villains. The player controls a young soccer enthusi...

The Summoning is a fantasy adventure that throws the player into a world of magic, monsters and rather unhealthy amounts of dungeon exploration. Built around an isometric viewpoint...

Hocus Pocus is the kind of platformer that seems to run on pure sugar and cheerful chaos. You play as a young wizard with more enthusiasm than common sense, bouncing through colorf...

Jimmy White Whirlwind Snooker transforms the traditionally calm game of snooker into something surprisingly tense. Released in 1991, it offers an impressive digital recreation of t...

Math Cad 2.5 is a mathematical computing package from an era when serious technical calculations were increasingly moving from paper and calculators onto personal computers. It pro...

Into the Eagle's Nest from 1987 is a top-down action game where stealth and gunfire coexist in uneasy partnership. Players infiltrate enemy territory, rescue prisoners, and survive...

Dragon World (1984) might sound like the precursor to a sprawling epic RPG, but it’s actually more of a board-game-style fantasy experience. Less “slay the dragon with ...

The Untouchables brings the Prohibition-era world of Eliot Ness and his team to the computer, mixing shootouts, driving sequences and other action set pieces inspired by the famous...

Super Speed is a straightforward racing game built around one very important concept: going fast. Players take control of racing cars, compete on circuits, and attempt to finish ah...

Forget modern physics—Caverns of Kroz lets you destroy walls with whips. Yes, whips. This 1989 ASCII masterpiece from Apogee is part puzzle, part action, and all danger. You ...

Archery (1985) is what happens when someone says, “Hey, what if we made a bow-and-arrow game with the graphical fidelity of a cave painting?” You shoot arrows. That&rsq...

Squarez Deluxe! is a 1993 puzzle game built around colored blocks, careful positioning, and the increasingly dangerous realization that your apparently brilliant move has just ruin...

S.T.U.N. Runner is a 1990 DOS conversion of Atari's futuristic arcade racer, throwing players into a high-speed world of twisting tracks, jumps, enemies, and spectacular obstacles....

Elevator is one of those early arcade-style games that sounds boring on paper and becomes oddly stressful in practice. You’re navigating elevators, rescuing people, and avoid...

Magnetik Tank is a classic arcade-style tank game that mixes shooting with the unusual idea suggested by its title: magnets. Rather than simply driving around and blasting everythi...

Crystal Caves is a bright, cheerful platformer starring Mylo Steamwitz, an entrepreneur whose business plan involves raiding dangerous alien caves for profit. The levels are full o...

The Blue & the Gray is a strategy game built around the American Civil War, giving players the chance to command forces on either side of the conflict. Released in 1993, it focuses...

Guardians: Agents of Justice puts the player in the role of a superhero-style operative tasked with dealing with threats that are considerably less interested in obeying the law. T...

When Wayne Gretzky Hockey hit DOS in 1989, it set a standard for hockey games that many would follow. Fast, fluid, and surprisingly tactical, it captured the feel of ice hockey wit...

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 warri...

Total Carnage is a wonderfully unsubtle top-down shooter in which the solution to almost every problem is to fire more ammunition. Lots more ammunition. You control heavily armed s...

Night Hunter is a 1988 action game that embraces the idea of being a creature of the night and then gives the player plenty of reasons to regret leaving the house after sunset. The...

Star Control is a 1990 science-fiction strategy game that mixes space exploration, diplomacy, resource management, and tactical combat into an unusually entertaining package. Playe...

Electranoid takes the classic Breakout formula, feeds it too much caffeine, and then turns the speed dial to “panic.” This 1995 DOS version is all about reflexes, power...

Starlord is a 1987 science-fiction strategy game centered on exploration, expansion, and competition among rival forces in space. Players must manage resources, develop their posit...

Patrician is a 1992 trading and economic simulation set within the Hanseatic League, inviting players to build commercial success through careful planning rather than heroic swordp...

IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem) is one of the strangest and deepest roguelikes ever created. Released in 2001, it combines brutal difficulty with extraordinary detail, from limb dama...

Released in 1985, Space Commanders 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel — it just made it spin faster. The sequel adds smoother animation, a few new enemy patterns, and a slight...

One-Nil Soccer Manager is a text-based soccer management simulation game that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed for various home computer systems, inc...

The Geekwad: Games of the Galaxy is a collection of bizarre mini-games aimed squarely at players who enjoy their arcade action with a generous helping of nonsense. Rather than buil...