abandonware games sorted by popularity

Follow the Reader (1992, DOS) is an educational oddity that feels like a kindly librarian discovered the power of DOS and decided to make literacy a competitive sport. You guide wo...

In BC's Quest for Tires, you play a loincloth-wearing caveman who’s riding a unicycle through danger, because apparently that’s how courtship worked in 1984. The goal? ...

Tera: La Cité des Crânes is a moody adventure that leans heavily on atmosphere and mystery. The world feels strange and slightly unsettling, with puzzles that require patience an...

Forbidden Castle (1985, DOS) is a side-scrolling expedition into pixelated peril, where every corridor seems to hide a trap designed by someone with a mischievous streak. You explo...

QBasic 1.1 is Microsoft's approachable programming environment for DOS and one of the easiest ways an entire generation learned that computers could be told exactly what to do. It ...

DBGL is a free and open-source frontend for DOSBox available for many platforms, developed in Java.

Troll's Tale is a charming early adventure that combines fairy-tale imagery with simple exploration and puzzle solving. The player takes on the role of a young heroine travelling t...

Guerrilla War wastes no time pretending to be subtle. You run upward, you shoot everything that moves, and occasionally you rescue a hostage who seems oddly calm about the whole si...

Netherworld is a 1990 action game that sends the player into a strange, hostile world filled with enemies, obstacles, and the sort of atmosphere that suggests the local tourism boa...

La Grande Armée (1991) returns to Napoleonic warfare, but with a sharper focus on military tactics than imperial administration. This strategy game puts you in charge of mas...

Dominium (1992) is an ambitious mix of real-time strategy and empire management, though perhaps “ambitious” is just another word for “slightly overwhelming.&rdquo...

Stormbringer: Elric of Melnibone brings Michael Moorcock's dark fantasy world to the computer, placing the player in the role of Elric, the tragic albino sorcerer and emperor whose...

Mystical is an atmospheric adventure that blends exploration, fantasy, and puzzle solving into a journey through a world filled with strange locations and mysterious events. Player...

Romantic Encounters at the Dome is a 1988 DOS title with a decidedly unusual focus, placing romance and social interaction at the center of its gameplay. Rather than commanding arm...

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....

Subbuteo brings the famous tabletop football game to the computer, attempting to capture the peculiar magic of flicking tiny players around a pitch without requiring an actual dini...

Microsoft Diagnostics 3.01 is a troubleshooting utility designed to examine a DOS computer and provide useful information about its hardware and system configuration. In an era whe...

Welcome to Los Angeles, where crime runs rampant and your job is to bring the chaos down with nothing but surveillance skills and a stern attitude. L.A. Crackdown puts you in the s...

Monday Night Football brings the excitement of American football to the computer with a focus on play selection, strategy, and the tactical decisions that can change a game in seco...

Building upon the original formula, Kingdom of Kroz 2 introduces fresh levels, new challenges, and even more opportunities to question every decision you make. Exploration remains ...

The Definitive Wargame Collection is aimed at players who regard a battlefield map as perfectly good entertainment for an entire evening. Rather than focusing on reflexes or flashy...

Objection! is a 1992 DOS game built around the dramatic world of courtroom arguments, legal reasoning, and the thrilling possibility that one badly chosen sentence can ruin your en...

The Third Courier is a Cold War thriller built around espionage, investigation and the decidedly uncomfortable business of trying to uncover a secret before someone eliminates you....

Civil War buffs, rejoice. Battle of Antietam (1985) lets you relive one of the bloodiest days in American history... via pixelated dots and turn-based tension. There’s no fla...

Guardians is a science-fiction action game built around the familiar idea that humanity needs someone brave enough to deal with an assortment of hostile forces. The player explores...

Few games from 1994 dared to ask the real question: “What if you gave an axe to someone with absolutely no training and dropped them into a dungeon with the reflexes of a slo...

Rawcopy is a straightforward DOS utility designed around copying data, with the sort of focused functionality that was common among command-line tools of the period. Rather than at...

DataEase 4 was a database management system designed to let users build applications around structured information without having to become professional programmers first. Its phil...

Roller Coaster Rumbler is a 1989 DOS game built around the wonderfully simple idea of causing trouble in a theme-park roller coaster environment. Players must navigate the ride and...

The Lost Treasures of Infocom is essentially a library of interactive fiction for players willing to trade spectacular graphics for spectacularly active imaginations. The collectio...