abandonware games sorted by popularity

Sarakon is a 1991 DOS puzzle game centered around manipulating pieces on a board to create matches and clear obstacles. The basic rules are easy to understand, but the real challen...

Borderworld (1996, DOS) is a sci-fi RPG with big ideas, a tiny budget, and enough ambition to fuel a space shuttle. You’re thrown into a galaxy of politics, smuggling, and st...

1994Pool is a straightforward pool simulation that brings the familiar green baize and clatter of billiard balls to the computer screen. The game focuses on the essentials: lining ...

If you thought Norse mythology needed more monochrome graphics, Caves of Thor (1989) has you covered. It’s an early Apogee game, meaning it’s tough, quirky, and uses le...

Murder on the Zinderneuf combines detective work with a wonderfully theatrical setting, placing players aboard a luxurious airship where a murder has occurred and practically every...

Eagle's Rider is one of those early ’90s DOS games that feels slightly unhinged in the best possible way. You control a futuristic rider soaring through abstract landscapes, ...

Fallen Angel, released in 1989, is one of those games that feels slightly mysterious even while you’re playing it. Blending action and light adventure elements, it drops you ...

Educational games often struggle to balance learning with entertainment, but Mario is Missing! takes an unusual approach by sending Luigi around the world to rescue his famous brot...

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...

FreeDOS Shell provides a command-line environment for FreeDOS, bringing the classic DOS experience to a later generation of computers. Its purpose is wonderfully straightforward: g...

Blitz Runner is a fast-moving action game built around speed, reflexes and the increasingly difficult task of staying alive while everything around you seems determined to get in t...

Tron brings the neon-lit world of the famous science-fiction movie to the computer, offering a collection of arcade-inspired challenges built around speed, survival, and brightly c...

Carriers at War is a detailed naval strategy game focused on aircraft carriers and the brutal arithmetic of Pacific warfare. Players command fleets, plan operations, launch aircraf...

Released in 1984, Janitor Joe proves that maintenance work can be surprisingly dangerous. Players guide Joe through industrial environments filled with ladders, hazards, and mechan...

Shadow Sorcerer is a fantasy role-playing adventure set in the Dragonlance universe, combining exploration, party management, combat, and a strong emphasis on narrative. Players co...

Ah, BurgerTime. The game that asked the important question: what if we made a platformer about a tiny chef assembling giant burgers while being chased by sentient hot dogs? You gui...

ResidualVM is an open-source game engine project created to run certain classic adventure games on modern computers by replacing their original executable code with a compatible en...

Before AI could annihilate grandmasters, Psion Chess was already humbling humans back in 1985. Available for DOS and Macintosh, this game wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t n...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly creepy, Zork Nemesis is what happens when the whimsical world of Zork goes goth. The text adventures are gone—now it’s full-motion video, ...

The Computer Edition of Scrabble takes the familiar word game and gives it the one opponent who never gets tired, never needs a coffee break, and never claims that a questionable d...

SeXXcapades is an adult-oriented collection of games built around the playful, provocative style common to many early PC titles aimed at a mature audience. Rather than offering a c...

Put on your mental trench coat, because Codebreaker is here to make you feel smart—or incredibly foolish. It’s a brain-teasing logic game where you deduce secret number...

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...

Shanghai is a digital adaptation of the classic mahjong solitaire format, transforming a traditional tile-matching puzzle into a remarkably addictive computer pastime. The objectiv...

Shadoworlds (1993, DOS) blends sci-fi corridors with fantasy ambitions, creating a curious hybrid that feels both familiar and slightly off-kilter. You assemble a squad to tackle m...

Mirror Magic is a clever puzzle adventure built around mirrors, reflections, and the delightful realization that optical illusions can be considerably more complicated than they lo...

Super Stardust is a fast-paced space shooter that throws the player into a colorful galaxy filled with enemies, asteroids, power-ups, and the sort of screen activity that makes bli...

King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table blends medieval legend with strategy and role-playing, inviting players to gather brave knights while protecting Camelot from all manner of...

ASCII art has never been so morbid. Classic Hangman is exactly what it says on the tin: guess the word or watch your little stick figure meet a tragic end. Letters become lifelines...

MicroMan is a wonderfully strange platform adventure that shrinks its hero down to microscopic proportions and sends him into a world where ordinary objects become enormous obstacl...