abandonware games sorted by popularity

By 1992, Vol. 3 wrapped up the trilogy with even more complex scenarios. At this point, the series had become less of a game and more of an interactive textbook—though that&r...

Released in 1987, Lords of Conquest is strategy in its most distilled, no-nonsense form. This is a game that drops you onto a map, hands you control of armies, and essentially says...

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War is an adventure/role-playing game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. The player takes on the role of the Hero, who has journe...

Borland Reflex was a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Borland International, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Reflex was rele...

You probably didn’t know you needed a game about a rapping, music-spinning dragon, but DJ Puff fills that oddly specific void. Released in 1993 for DOS, this platformer featu...

In this 1992 DOS RPG, you play as an agent of the Faunus Foundation, protecting the world from cosmic horrors. Set in 1921, the game combines detective work with Lovecraftian eleme...

Panger General is a turn based strategy wargame developed by SSI set in World War 2. The player can choose Axis or Allies and fight against the AI or another human player in more t...

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...

Checkers for Windows is exactly what it says on the tin—checkers. But somehow, it turns this rainy-afternoon classic into a digital duel of patience and spite. No explosions,...

In Scrooge (1991), you play everyone’s favorite miser in a faithful retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol—if Dickens had access to VGA graphics and MIDI carols....

Ah yes, the golden age of video games: where catching babies yeeted from burning buildings was a fun pastime. In Bouncing Babies, you play as a heroic volunteer with a trampoline, ...

Fish or be fished could be the motto of Bass Duel (1993), a competitive angling game that pits you against a friend or an AI in a fight to the last splash. Strategy is key: where t...