Turn-based games sorted by release date

Ah, Death Knights of Krynn—a 1991 RPG where you fight hordes of undead in the Dragonlance universe. SSI’s Gold Box series wasn’t known for holding your hand, and this one is no exception. You’ll roll dice, ...

Dragonflight (1991) was a German RPG that dared to think big—party-based adventuring, sprawling maps, and a proper fantasy plot. It played like a love letter to Ultima with its mix of open exploration and questing. The game ...

Gateway to the Savage Frontier is a Dungeons & Dragons computer role-playing game released in 1991. It was developed by Beyond Software (later known as Stormfront Studios) and published by SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.) as ...

HeroQuest is a classic video game adaptation of the popular board game HeroQuest, released in 1991 by Gremlin Interactive. HeroQuest faithfully recreates the turn-based, dungeon-crawling, and role-playing gameplay of the...

Jones in the Fast Lane is the kind of game that you don't see often these days. It's a mix between a digital board game and a modern day life simulation. The goal of the game is to live the life of Jones, making choices about scho...

Lexi-Cross is an abandoned science fiction tv show-styled puzzle game. Lexi-Cross was developed by Platinumware and released for DOS by Interplay Productions in 1991. The gameplay is a turn-based mix between Scrabble and Wheel of ...

Pools of Darkness is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). It is the fourth entry in the "Gold Box" series of Dungeons & Dragons games, which are based on the Advance...

Scorched Earth (1991) was the “mother of all games” long before Doom took the title. Two or more tanks face off on a randomly generated terrain, and your only mission is to blow everyone else sky-high. Simple? Yes. Add...

If you ever wanted to run a football club without leaving your chair, The Manager (1991, DOS) delivers. This early management sim lets you buy players, balance budgets, and suffer endless heartbreak when your team loses despite pe...

The Perfect General is a turn-based strategy military game developed by White Wolf Productions and released in 1991 by Quantun Quality Production. The Perfect General gameplay is quite simple compared to other wargames, but it's b...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully bizarre as it sounds. Instead of Britannia, you&r...

This 1992 casino sim for DOS drops you into the neon-soaked carpet jungle of the Four Queens Hotel in Vegas. There’s no plot, no hero’s journey - just you, a digital bankroll, and the cold, soulless eyes of the slot ma...

A Line in the Sand (1992) is what happens when a board game about modern Middle Eastern warfare gets turned into a DOS strategy title with all the subtlety of a cold war memo. You command military forces in a region that is perpet...

Amberstar is a fantasy old school RPG very similar to Ultima 6 that uses a top-down view for interiors and small locations and a first person pseudo 3D view for everything else. Unfortunately, the sequel (called Ambermoon) was ava...

For those who think snooker is too posh and billiards too French, there's Archer Maclean's Pool, the most ‘90s way to simulate the timeless art of arguing over whether that shot was really legal. It’s pool in DOS &mdas...