abandonware games sorted by popularity

Football fans eager to relive one of Manchester United's greatest achievements found plenty to enjoy in Manchester United: The Double. Combining management elements with on-pitch a...

Only in the early ’90s could a game like Death by Backgammon exist with a straight face. It’s 1990, you’re on DOS, and suddenly backgammon isn’t just a quie...

Swap is a puzzle game built around a wonderfully simple idea: rearrange things until the board behaves itself. Released in 1992, it challenges the player with increasingly tricky a...

Released in 1989, Last Duel: Inter Planet War 2012 is a fast-paced side-scrolling shooter that keeps players constantly moving through waves of relentless enemies. Piloting advance...

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...

Basketball games often focus on realism, but Jammit preferred style, attitude, and spectacular dunks. Released in 1994, it offers fast-paced one-on-one and two-on-two street basket...

Alice in Wonderland is a whimsical adventure inspired by Lewis Carroll's famous journey down the rabbit hole. Rather than offering a conventional heroic quest, it places the player...

Fate: the Traitor Soul is an action RPG built around exploration, combat, loot, and the irresistible temptation to open one more chest before going home. The game sends you into da...

Space Miner is a 1983 DOS game built around the classic science-fiction fantasy of heading into space and extracting valuable resources. The player pilots a spacecraft through dang...

Dungeon Explorer takes the term “dungeon” very seriously—there’s a lot of it, and not much else. Released in 1990, this top-down adventure is part RPG, part...

International Moto X in 1996 brings motocross thrills to DOS with mud, speed, and the constant threat of spectacular wipeouts. The game balances arcade accessibility with enough ch...

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 ...

Strike Fleet puts you in command of naval forces and asks you to make decisions that are considerably more complicated than simply pointing a ship toward the enemy. Different vesse...

Gulf Strike places you in the cockpit during a very contemporary-for-1986 conflict, blending strategy and simulation with a dash of headline-inspired drama. You manage missions, al...

Snack Attack 2 is a 1982 DOS arcade-style game built around a simple but immediately understandable premise: collect food while dealing with hazards and enemies that would rather m...

Mindwheel is a distinctive science fiction adventure that combines interactive storytelling with a strange, dreamlike atmosphere and a focus on exploration. Players encounter unusu...

Soul Crystal is a Japanese-style role-playing adventure built around exploration, battles, character development, and a fantasy story involving magic and mysterious powers. Players...

Final Frontier is a late-80s slice of space ambition, the kind that assumes you’re perfectly happy staring at menus while imagining epic interstellar conquest. It’s str...

Mike Ditka Ultimate Football brings American football to the computer with a focus on strategy, play selection, and the hard-hitting action that makes the sport so distinctive. Pla...

There’s something charmingly ruthless about TV Mogul, a game that hands you a television network and basically says, “Don’t mess it up.” Released in 1988, it throws you int...

Oil's Well is an action-puzzle game released by Sierra On-Line in 1983/84. It was originally made for platforms like the Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS, but was la...

If Catacomb Abyss was “Doom for wizards,” then Catacomb Armageddon is “Doom with a Halloween costume budget.” Bigger levels, more enemies, and slightly more...

In Crime and Punishment, you’re not the criminal—you’re the detective, judge, and executioner rolled into one. Presented as a legal simulation, it tasks you with ...

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...

The Castle of Dr. Malvado is a compact adventure built around the wonderfully old-fashioned idea that entering a mysterious castle owned by a sinister doctor is probably a perfectl...

Traders is a trading and economic strategy game built around the classic pleasure of buying low, selling high, and wondering why the computer somehow always seems to have more mone...

IBM Fullscreen Definition FSDPC is a wonderfully specific piece of early PC software, reflecting a time when even apparently simple display features could require their own dedicat...

By the time Laser Squad reached DOS in 1992, its reputation as a superb tactical strategy game was already well deserved. Every mission demands thoughtful positioning, careful use ...

Flash Gordon: Il Rapimento di Dale throws you into a pulpy sci-fi serial where subtlety is left at the airlock. Based on the adventures of the square-jawed space hero, the game lea...

Mortal Pong takes the simplest possible tennis-inspired game and gives it an absurdly dramatic fighting-game twist. The result is exactly as strange as the title suggests: players ...