abandonware games sorted by popularity

Roll up, roll up! Circus Attractions turns your PC into a low-resolution big top full of minigames, each one zanier than the last. Think clown juggling, lion taming, and tightrope ...

Daffy Duck PI: The Case of the Missing Letters is a Looney Tunes spin on the classic edutainment formula. As Daffy, you’re on the trail of a nefarious plot to steal the alpha...

Gunboat trades fighter jets for naval tension, placing you in command of a small but heavily armed vessel navigating hostile waters. The gameplay mixes simulation detail with actio...

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...

Cyrus is a chess program that doesn’t just play well—it plays with personality. The AI adjusts to your skill level, offering a challenge whether you’re a beginner...

In 1986, Dragonfly emerged as one of those simple but strangely addictive action games. Picture a cross between a shooter and an abstract insect simulator. The graphics are blocky,...

Welcome to Border Zone (1987, DOS), where the Cold War is hot and your only weapon is your brain (and maybe a good map). This text-based espionage thriller from Infocom combines sp...

Despite the ominous title, Caverns of Chaos (1992) plays like the lovechild of rogue-like masochism and old-school dungeon crawling. There’s loot, traps, monsters, and more w...

Columbus Discovery (1992, DOS) is a history-flavored point-and-click adventure where you, as a pixelated Christopher Columbus, set sail to "discover" lands that are already very mu...

Ford Simulator 2 (1990, DOS) refines the showroom-on-a-floppy concept with smoother presentation and a bit more driving confidence. The cars handle with reassuring steadiness, and ...

Side Arms: Hyper Dyne is a side-scrolling shoot-'em-up arcade game developed and published by Capcom in 1986 and later ported on various platforms. Players control a "mobilsui...

Before Diablo made clicking on dungeons cool, DarkSpyre was already throwing players into labyrinths filled with monsters and puzzles. Released in 1990, it combines hack-and-slash ...

F40 Pursuit Simulator takes a different approach by putting you in the cockpit of a fictional high-tech interceptor designed for one job: catching bad guys. Instead of large-scale ...

The all new Family Feud brings the classic TV game show into your home, complete with survey questions and the eternal struggle to guess what other people are thinking. It’s simp...

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...