abandonware games sorted by popularity

Waterloo (1989, DOS) is not here to entertain you with flashy graphics or arcade thrills. Instead, it calmly places Napoleon and Wellington on the table and expects you to think. A...

The Curse of Monkey Island is one of the great comic adventure games of the late 1990s, combining pirates, absurd puzzles, memorable characters, and enough terrible puns to sink a ...

Creatures is an unusual life-simulation game built around the idea that virtual creatures should actually behave like living things. You hatch small Norns, teach them, feed them, p...

Royal Flush Pinball is a 1994 DOS pinball game that brings the familiar combination of flippers, bumpers, targets, ramps, and flashing lights to the PC screen. The goal is wonderfu...

Deskmate is a software suite developed by Tandy Corporation that provided a graphical user interface (GUI) and a set of applications for personal computers. It was often bundled wi...

Crime City is an isometric action game that throws you into the role of a lone enforcer cleaning up the streets. Armed with a trusty weapon and a questionable sense of self-preserv...

Othello is a 1986 computer adaptation of the classic strategy board game in which two players compete to control the board by surrounding and flipping their opponent’s pieces. Th...

If classic fantasy ever needed a designated clown, Eric the Unready would proudly volunteer. This 1993 adventure from Legend Entertainment gleefully demolishes every heroic trope i...

Perry Mason is a 1985 adventure game based on the famous fictional lawyer, bringing courtroom drama and investigation to the computer screen. Players take the role of Perry Mason, ...

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...

Cougar Force feels like the ’80s exploded into a side-scrolling action game. Big guns, big hair, and bigger explosions define this run-and-gun romp where subtlety is for othe...

Unlike traditional adventure games, Kingdom: The Far Reaches focuses on cinematic storytelling through live-action performances and beautifully rendered environments. Players unrav...

Legacy of Llylgamyn steps up the ante, sending your party into a town under siege and dungeons filled with more monsters than your imagination can comfortably handle. This isn&rsqu...

TheDraw 4 is a classic DOS text and ASCII-art editor, built for users who wanted their otherwise boring command-line screens to have a little personality. It provides tools for cre...

Ishido (1990, DOS/Mac) is the digital version of sitting in a Zen garden and realizing you’re terrible at strategy. The game’s premise is simple: place stones on a grid...

Escape from Monkey Island brings Guybrush Threepwood back for another wonderfully ridiculous pirate adventure. The game mixes exploration, dialogue, puzzles, and comedy, continuing...

WinRisk brings the classic territory-conquest board game formula to Windows, giving players a digital battlefield where armies can be moved, territories captured, and alliances rui...

Doubling down on chaos, Fire and Forget 2 turns the volume up and asks questions later. The concept remains deliciously simple: speed forward, blast everything, try not to explode ...

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...

Omnicron Conspiracy (1989, DOS) is a detective adventure wrapped in a cozy sci-fi blanket. You play as a Galactic Patrol agent solving crimes across alien worlds, all rendered in c...

Sky Shark is a 1989 DOS conversion of the classic vertically scrolling arcade shooter, putting players behind the controls of a fighter aircraft and filling the screen with enemy p...

Dark Sun 2: Wake of the Ravager takes the harsh desert world of Athas and turns up the intensity. Building on its predecessor, it offers deeper role-playing, improved combat, and a...

Amerzone is like stepping into a dream where logic is optional and atmosphere is everything. You play a journalist unraveling the mystery of a dying explorer’s last journey, ...

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...

In Diggers 2: Extractors, released in 1995, the digging franchise doubled down on strategy while adding a dash of science fiction flair. This time, your miners aren’t just bu...

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...

Dragon Lord (1990) is what happens when you let a fantasy novelist design a strategy game. You’re a would-be sorcerer trying to raise dragons, manage villages, and conquer la...

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...

Video Casino is a straightforward casino simulation that brings several familiar gambling games to the computer screen. The idea is wonderfully simple: choose your game, place your...