abandonware games sorted by popularity

Here comes another bubble game—but this one packs a punch. Bubble Trouble is a frantic shoot-’em-up where you pop evil bouncing bubbles before they bounce you out of ex...

Colorado (1990, DOS) drops you into the buckskin boots of a rugged frontiersman navigating the Wild West with guns, canoes, and questionable hygiene. Equal parts action and explora...

Sci-Mutant Priestess (1989) is French, weird, and proud of it. You play as a rebellious mutant in a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi world ruled by bio-psychic cults. Obviously. It’s...

Manic Miner is a quintessential platformer game that emerged in the early 1980s, developed by Matthew Smith for the ZX Spectrum. It stands as a hallmark of the 8-bit gaming era, ce...

Humans 3: Evolution - Lost in Time takes the familiar formula of guiding small, vulnerable characters and adds a time-travel twist. Released in 1995, it challenges you to manage gr...

Released in 1993, Fantasy Empires is a turn-based strategy game that politely assumes you enjoy spreadsheets as much as swords. Managing kingdoms, armies, and resources, it offers ...

If text adventures are your thing, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative (1985, DOS) will either delight or destroy you. You type commands to guide Kirk and crew through a no-win sc...

Visions of the Aftermath: The Boomtown is an abandoned simulation game with role-playing elements developed by Mindscape and released in 1988 exclusively for DOS. Visions of the Af...

Before Virtua Tennis, there was this: 4D Sports Tennis, where physics and pixels politely shake hands and then forget why they were introduced. Released in 1990 for DOS, this game ...

Imagine Tetris went on a sugar binge and had an identity crisis. That’s Zyconix (1992, DOS) in a nutshell. It’s a tile-matching puzzle game where nothing quite behaves ...

Lancelot (1988) is an action-adventure that draws loosely from Arthurian legend and very tightly from the difficulty school of “good luck.” You guide the famous knight ...

In Crazy Nick’s Parlor Games with Laura Bow, the famous young detective swaps clues for checkers, backgammon, and card tables. The change of pace is gentle—no bodies to...

There’s something oddly poetic about 8088 Othello, a 1985 take on the classic board game that feels like it was programmed by someone who had a personal vendetta against flas...

Shadowcaster is a first-person action role-playing game developed by Raven Software and published by Origin Systems. It was released in 1993 for MS-DOS computers.In Shadowcaster, p...