abandonware games sorted by popularity

Part interactive thriller, part newsroom simulator, The President is Missing (1988, DOS) casts you as an investigative journalist trying to unravel a political conspiracy before ev...

Highway Fighter delivers straightforward action with a focus on reflexes and timing. It throws obstacles your way with enthusiasm, expecting you to adapt quickly or face the conseq...

The name screams “budget shareware,” and Bubble Pop delivers. It’s the digital equivalent of popping bubble wrap, except someone decided it needed high scores and...

Paganitzu is a classic puzzle-adventure game released in 1991 by Apogee Software. Set in an ancient pyramid, the game follows the exploits of its protagonist, Alabama Smith, who mu...

By 1993, Dragon Force - Day 3 landed as an obscure tactical experiment on DOS. Despite the name, it’s not about a power metal band’s rehearsal schedule but rather a day...

Iznogoud from 1987 adapts the famous comic into an adventure-platform hybrid filled with traps, puzzles, and cartoon mischief. Its humor carries much of the charm, while the gamepl...

Trade in your sword and crown for a dice cup in King Graham’s Board Game Challenge. The noble hero of King’s Quest takes a break from slaying dragons to play board game...

Black Friday (1983) isn’t about shopping mayhem—though you might wish it were after trying to figure out what’s going on. This early DOS title is part stock marke...

Before apps, spreadsheets, and AI Dungeon Masters, there was Dungeon Master’s Assistant Vol. 1. Released in 1988, this tool was a digital sidekick for pen-and-paper D&D p...

Crisis in the Kremlin lets you step into the shoes of a Soviet leader during the late 1980s, facing the impossible task of guiding the USSR through economic collapse, political unr...

With Gnome Ranger 2: Ingrid’s Back, things get a bit more polished, though not necessarily more sane. The puzzles return, along with the dreamlike environments and that pecul...

Don't Go Alone is the kind of title that doesn’t need a warning label—it’s the warning label. This horror-themed dungeon crawler from 1989 drops you into a world ...

Don’t let the title fool you — Blitz Draughts isn’t a military simulation but rather a gloriously intense checkers game from 1992. This DOS brain-bender turns the...

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...

Udoiana Raunes is one of those late-DOS curiosities that feels like it escaped from a developer’s hard drive by accident. It presents itself as a fantasy adventure, but quick...

Released in 1984, Zyll is what happens when a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master learns to code and decides to build a text adventure inside a coffee machine. There are no graph...