abandonware games sorted by release date

In Moonmist (1986), you’re invited to a spooky English castle where, naturally, murder and mystery are on the menu. This Infocom text adventure mixes romance, ghost stories, and classic whodunit elements. It’s less abo...

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side panels and featured copy, delete, editing and preview ...

Imagine being the captain of a space freighter crewed entirely by neurotic aliens, each with a personality straight out of a sitcom. That’s Psi 5 Trading Company in a nutshell. Released in 1986, this game tasks you with mana...

Pyramid Power (1986) is what happens when archaeology meets abstract strategy. You’re not dodging mummies or solving hieroglyph puzzles—instead, you’re stacking tiles into triangular perfection. It’s a cere...

Questprobe Featuring Spider-Man is an abandoned text-based adventure game designed by Scott Adams, developed and released by Adventure International in 1986 for DOS but was also published for Acorn Electron, Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro...

Silicon Dreams by Level 9 Computing is a trilogy of interactive fiction (text adventure) games released in the mid-1980s. The trilogy includes three separate games: Snowball, Return to Eden, and The Worm in Paradise. Each game com...

Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line, released in 1986. It was created by the duo of Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, who later became known as the "Two Guys from An...

A text/graphic adventure from 1986 for DOS and Mac, Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy is the precursor to Kobayashi Alternative but far more playable. You explore alien worlds, solve problems, and make classic Star Trek moral cho...

Starflight is a classic space exploration and role-playing video game released in 1986 by Binary Systems and published by Electronic Arts. It is known for its innovative gameplay, as well as its open-ended approach to space explor...

If you’ve ever wondered what professional wrestling would look like if it were coded on a calculator from the 1980s, Tag Team Wrestling has your answer. Two beefy sprites—half muscle, half pixels—slug it out in a...

Welcome to Tass Times in Tonetown, where the ‘80s collided with science fiction and nobody cleaned up the mess. It’s a bizarre adventure full of punk hairdos, neon colors, and talking dogs who wear sunglasses. The inte...

As a prisoner of war, you must find a way to escape a prison in Germany in 1942. The prisoner has a daily routine which will follow if not controlled by the player for a certain amount of time.