abandonware games sorted by popularity

If you’ve ever stared at a Monopoly board and thought, “This needs more spreadsheets,” then Oligopoly is basically your spiritual home. Released in 1987 for DOS, ...

Mission Critical delivers a tense science fiction adventure centered on survival, exploration, and a desperate struggle aboard a damaged spacecraft. Players must investigate their ...

Rad Warrior is a 1986 action game that sends players into a dangerous post-apocalyptic world where survival depends on exploration, combat, and quick reactions. The player takes co...

On The Ball is a soccer management game that puts the player on the touchline rather than directly on the pitch. Success depends on decisions involving tactics, lineups, transfers,...

In the neon-lit corridors of cyberspace, you're a "decker," infiltrating corporate mainframes like a digital ninja. Released in 2002, this roguelike RPG offers a tile-based cyberpu...

Gettysburg: Civil War Battles is a detailed strategy game centered on one of the most famous battles of the American Civil War. Rather than reducing the conflict to a simple exchan...

Microsoft COBOL 1.12 is an early Microsoft implementation of COBOL, providing DOS programmers with the tools required to write and compile applications in one of computing's most i...

Pictionary: The Game of Quick Draw is a 1989 adaptation of the popular drawing and guessing board game, bringing the creativity and chaos of group play to the computer. Players att...

Based on the Disney movie that taught us cats can sing, dance, and apparently navigate 1980s New York, Oliver & Company for DOS (1989) is a surprisingly earnest platformer. You...

Treasure Trap is the sort of game that understands the basic appeal of a good dungeon: there are treasures to find, dangers to avoid, and absolutely no sensible reason to keep goin...

Only in the early ’90s could a game like Death by Backgammon exist with a straight face. It’s 1990, you’re on DOS, and suddenly backgammon isn’t just a quie...

Rather than retreading the campaign formula of its predecessor, Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games focused on standalone tactical missions and competitive play. Released in 1996, it off...

Released in 1983 for DOS, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is what happens when early arcade design meets Federation bureaucracy. Vector-style graphics make you feel like ...

Khalaan blends role-playing, exploration, and strategic combat into a fantasy adventure that quietly rewards determination. Players travel through varied environments, interact wit...

European Championship 1992 captures football in a raw, almost scrappy form. This isn’t about realism or presentation; it’s about getting the ball forward and hoping for...

Arnhem is the kind of wargame where you spend more time reading hex maps than shooting anything. It’s all about recreating Operation Market Garden — you know, that WWII...

HTML Tads is a development tool aimed at creating interactive fiction for the web, bringing the wonderfully old-fashioned pleasure of text adventures into a more modern environment...

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is a 1991 mystery adventure that attempts to recreate the experience of investigating a Holmes story rather than simply watching one unfold. Pl...

If you’ve ever wondered what Bill Gates was doing before becoming a household name, Donkey BAS holds the answer: programming a game about avoiding pixelated donkeys on a high...

Project Neptune is a 1989 DOS strategy game that takes players into a futuristic underwater conflict where careful planning is the key to victory. Players command forces in a scien...

By 1993, Dragon Force - Day 3 landed as an obscure tactical experiment on DOS. Despite the name, it’s not about a power metal band’s rehearsal schedule but rather a day...

Released in 1990, Logo introduces players to programming concepts through the famous turtle graphics system, transforming coding into an approachable creative activity. Rather than...

Omega (1989, DOS) is what happens when someone hands you a robot, a wrench, and a thick manual, then says, “Good luck out there.” Instead of piloting a mech, you actual...

Step into the gray, morally ambiguous world of corporate domination with Big Business. It’s Monopoly with fewer dice and more spreadsheets. Crush your competitors, manipulate...

Ah, BurgerTime. The game that asked the important question: what if we made a platformer about a tiny chef assembling giant burgers while being chased by sentient hot dogs? You gui...

Think of Aldo's Assault as what happens when Mario forgets his plumber license and joins a bootleg army. This 1991 DOS gem throws you into a side-scrolling frenzy of ladders, barre...

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...

Operation Europe: Path to Victory 1939-45 is a 1994 strategy game that covers the enormous scope of the Second World War and somehow expects the player to make sense of it all. The...

Deluxe Paint 1 is one of the landmark graphics programs of the early personal-computer era, particularly associated with the Amiga before its tools and ideas found wider influence....

Grand Prix Wizard sounds like it might involve spells, but sadly no one is casting fireballs at rival drivers. Instead, Grand Prix Wizard leans into management, asking you to handl...