abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Zoom! is a puzzle game that desperately wants to be cool. You're a sunglasses-wearing smiley face cruising down psychedelic gridlines while dodging blobs and filling in tiles like ...

The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian is a title that feels like it was generated by rolling dice on a fantasy word table, and somehow that’s part of its ...

Boot Camp (1989, DOS) is the game that turns military training into a button-mashing festival of pain. Ever dreamed of surviving basic training without breaking a sweat? This is it...

At first glance Mad Mix resembles a familiar maze chase, but it quickly reveals several wonderfully eccentric twists. Instead of relying solely on quick movement, players can trans...

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, ...

Grave Yardage takes golf, adds ghosts, and somehow makes the whole thing feel like a slightly spooky comedy. In Grave Yardage, you are putting your way through haunted courses wher...

Meteors takes the classic asteroid-blasting formula and turns it into an addictive test of reflexes and spatial awareness. Players pilot a small spacecraft through increasingly cro...

Hovertank One is an early first-person combat game that places you inside a futuristic armored vehicle and sends you into hostile environments. The idea is delightfully direct: dri...

Crazy Cars: Hit the Road is a deliberately old-fashioned arcade racing game that wastes very little time explaining itself. You get a car, a road, and plenty of opportunities to di...

Loopz, released in 1990, is the kind of puzzle game that looks innocent for about five seconds before it starts humbling you. The concept is simple: connect the pieces, form loops,...

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...

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...

Rocket Ranger is a 1988 DOS action-strategy game from Cinemaware that mixes science fiction, arcade sequences, and an alternate-history version of World War II. Players take on the...

Silly Master Blaster is a 1985 DOS action game whose title gives a fairly accurate warning about the level of seriousness involved. The game combines shooting and arcade-style chal...

Mean 18 (1986) is a golf game with more attitude than you’d expect from a sport usually associated with polite applause and quiet respect. This is arcade golf: fast, flashy, ...

Released in 1996, Joyous Rebel is a lesser-known DOS title that combines action and adventure elements within a colorful fantasy setting. Players guide a determined protagonist thr...

Xmas Lemmings takes the familiar formula of guiding tiny, clueless creatures to safety and wraps it in festive cheer. The levels are themed around the holiday season, complete with...

The Golden Fleece is a fantasy adventure inspired by the classic myth of Jason and the Argonauts, sending the player on a quest filled with exploration, danger, puzzles, and the oc...

Bomb Run (1991, DOS) sounds like an action-packed thriller—and then you play it and realize you’re just trying to drop bombs in the right spots while flying what feels ...

With a name like Genocide (1996), you know you’re not in for a lighthearted romp. This DOS platformer is dark, moody, and filled with enemies that seem genetically engineered...

Infocom really went off the rails with Nord and Bert, and bless them for it. This is a text adventure not about dragons or spaceships, but about puns. Yes, literal wordplay puzzles...

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? ...

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...

Rally Championships is a 1994 DOS racing game focused on rally-style competition, where speed alone is not enough to guarantee success. Players must deal with winding tracks, chang...

Vengeance of Excalibur is a fantasy role-playing adventure built around the legendary sword Excalibur and a suitably grand quest involving magic, monsters, and medieval intrigue. P...

Toyota Celica GT Rally puts the player behind the wheel of Toyota's famous rally machine and focuses on the rougher, dirtier side of motorsport. Instead of smooth circuits and pred...

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun, released in 1989 for DOS, is a platformer that looks cheerful but hides a surprisingly mean streak. Set in a circus filled with traps, clowns, and ...

The 1996 Hamurabi remake takes one of the oldest strategy concepts in gaming and gives it a modest DOS-era facelift. At its core, it’s still about managing resources, feeding...

Postal is a deliberately provocative top-down action game that throws the player into a bleak world of violence, paranoia, and very questionable decision-making. You control the Po...