The most popular abandonware adventure games

Based on Piers Anthony’s pun-filled fantasy world, Companions of Xanth is like walking into a joke book that got lost in a spellbook. You play a guy from the "real world" suc...

You’d think a spring break trip would be relaxing. Not when you're a magically inclined college student with a knack for attracting trouble (and bikinis). Spellcasting 301 se...

Dylan Dog: Through the Looking Glass takes the surrealism of the comics and dives headfirst into nightmare territory. Imagine Carroll’s Wonderland rewritten by Lovecraft and ...

In Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp (1990), Dirk doesn’t just fight dragons—he bungles his way through time itself. Want to rescue your wife Daphne? Prepare to stumble ...

Simon the Sorcerer is adventure game designed by Simon Woodroffe, developed and published by Adventure Soft and released in 1993. Often overlooked, Simon The Sorcerer is one of the...

In Breakers, you're a high-tech wrecking crew with a mission: break stuff. Computers, walls, enemy morale—whatever gets in your way. Released in 1986, it feels like a mutant ...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly creepy, Zork Nemesis is what happens when the whimsical world of Zork goes goth. The text adventures are gone—now it’s full-motion video, ...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

If Shakespeare wrote video games and then decided, “You know what this needs? A parser and some pixelated drama,” you'd get Avon. In this interactive fiction gem from 1...

The Curse of Monkey Island is the third installment in the iconic Monkey Island point-and-click adventure series developed by LucasArts. Released in 1997, it introduced a new visua...

Gnome Ranger feels like the kind of game that was designed by someone who really loved puzzles but maybe didn’t love explaining them. You control a gnome (clearly a recurring...

Ah, Black Sect (1993), where the puzzles are cryptic, the villagers are creepy, and the atmosphere is so thick you could spread it on toast. A classic first-person point-and-click ...

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition is an educational computer game released in 1992 by Broderbund Software. It's part of the popular Carmen Sandiego franchise, des...

WaxWorks (1992, DOS/Mac) is a horror game that doesn’t just want to scare you—it wants to traumatize you a little. Set in cursed wax museum exhibits, each scenario drop...

Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy is the sort of time-travel adventure that casually suggests you might want to prevent one of the most infamous assassinations in history befo...

The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time is the third chapter in The Journeyman Project series. It's a science fiction adventure game developed by Presto Studios, designed by Phil ...

What if Leisure Suit Larry and Monkey Island had a love child in outer space, raised by gender-swapped aliens? You’d get Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender-Bender, a hilarious...

Golden Oldies: Volume 1 - Computer Software Classics is less a single game and more a time capsule, offering a collection of early titles that remind you just how far gaming has co...

Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Revolution Software. Released in 1997. The game follows the continuing adventures of George...

Space Quest: The Lost Chapter is a curious artifact released in 2001 by dedicated fans who decided Roger Wilco deserved one more misadventure. Essentially a remake and expansion of...

Interactive fiction meets comic book in this spin-off, where you follow a fantasy story through illustrated panels and scripted choices. Zork Quest: Assault on Egreth Castle feels ...

If classic fantasy ever needed a designated clown, Eric the Unready would proudly volunteer. This 1993 adventure from Legend Entertainment gleefully demolishes every heroic trope i...

From 1987’s text adventure golden age, The Lurking Horror proves you don’t need graphics to be terrified. You’re a student trapped on a snowy university campus du...

Come one, come all, to the saddest circus ever pixelated. In Ballyhoo, you're stuck in a depressing carnival trying to solve a kidnapping while dealing with clowns, carnies, and th...