abandonware games sorted by popularity

Up Periscope! from 1988 lets you take command of a submarine, which sounds exciting until you realize just how much responsibility that entails. Managing depth, speed, and position...

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...

Joan of Arc places players in the role of the legendary French heroine during one of history's most turbulent conflicts. Released in 1989, this strategy game blends military planni...

In Search of Dr. Riptide from 1994 is a science-fiction adventure with enough eccentricity to fill several galaxies. Players investigate mysteries, solve puzzles, and generally que...

Helter Skelter feels like a delightful experiment in chaos, the kind of game that throws ideas at the wall just to see which ones stick. With its quirky mechanics and slightly unhi...

In the late 80s, when gamebooks were trying to escape paper and sneak into floppy disks, GrailQuest shows up wearing Monty Python armor and refusing to be taken seriously. In Grail...

Imagine a game where a gelatinous green creature (that may or may not be sentient chewing gum) bounces its way through logic puzzles and physics that occasionally remember gravity ...

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...

Empire Soccer 94 is football stripped of glamour and presented with a straight face that makes everything unintentionally funny. There are no licenses, no famous players, and no at...

A year earlier, the other Omega (1988) hit DOS and Linux, and no, it’s not the same game wearing a disguise. This one blends sci-fi exploration with tactical decision-making,...

Released in 1992, Sexy Droids ventured into science fiction with a mixture of adult humor and futuristic imagery. The game embraced its unusual concept wholeheartedly, presenting s...

Released in 1990, Disc feels like a relic from a parallel universe where Frisbee is the most important sport in history. The game is minimalist to a fault: you throw discs, catch d...

Bright, quirky, and just a little bit mischievous, Finders Keepers feels like it wandered in from another dimension where puzzles and platforming share equal custody of your patien...

In Kobayashi Naru (1987, DOS), you’re not saving the world—you’re solving it. This sci-fi puzzle adventure drops you in a mysterious facility filled with logic te...

Released in 1990, Dawn Raider is one of those obscure DOS shooters that probably spent more time in floppy disk boxes than in actual computers. It’s a vertical shoot-’e...

Before WWII games flooded the market, Knights of the Desert (1983, DOS) was already reenacting the North African campaign in pixels. You command Rommel’s Afrika Korps—o...