Abandonware DOS title

Top-down perspective sorted by release date

Top down games were very popular in the 80s and the 90s, when graphic cards were not capable of supporting 3D, and even when 3D started to become popular, 2D games continued to be easier to develop, at least in the infancy of 3D gaming. 2D game offered the player a viewpoint that helped keeping things easily under control (think about top down party-based RPGs or hex-based strategy games).
rescuerigel-1

Rescue at Rigel

DOS1983 Epyx
robotron-2084-3

Robotron 2084

DOS1983 Williams Entertainment
rollo-splash

Rollo and the Brush Brothers

DOS1983 Windmill Software
sleuth-splash

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery

DOS1983freeware Norland Software
ultima2-08

Ultima 2: Revenge of the Enchantress

DOS1983 Origin Systems
The second chapter of the Ultima saga is much similar to the first one (same top down visual, same dungeon 3d visual, same gameplay), although there are many small improvements. The series begins to take the shape of the detailed,...
archon-3

Archon: the Light and the Dark

DOS1984 Free Fall Associates
Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light versus dark, spellcasters versus golems, and battles ...
backgammon-splash

Backgammon

DOS1984 IBM
beast-01

Beast

DOS1984
Beast is ASCII horror at its most gloriously minimal. You’re a brave soul (well, a smiley face) trapped in a dungeon with sentient blobs (the titular beasts) that want you very, very dead. Armed only with moving blocks and r...
castle-adventure-04

Castle Adventure

DOS1984freeware
castle-wolfenstein-04

Castle Wolfenstein

DOS1984 Muse Software
chess88-1

Chess88

DOS1984
diplomacy-splash

Computer Diplomacy

DOS1984 Avalon Hill
dnd_text-01

DND

DOS1984
felony-02

Felony!

DOS1984 BrainBank
flightmare-04

Flightmare

DOS1984freeware
froggerjr-2

Frogger Jr.

DOS1984
gremlins-1-01

Gremlins

DOS1984 Atari
hack-5

Hack

DOS1984freeware
icon-ring-04

ICON: Quest for the Ring

DOS1984 Macrocom
mspacman-2

Ms. Pac-Man

DOS1984 Atarisoft
Ms. Pac-Man is a classic arcade game released by Midway in 1982 (1984 for DOS) as a follow-up to the original Pac-Man (1980), developed by Namco. While its core gameplay is similar - navigating a maze, eating dots, and a...
Murder_on_The_Zinderneuf-03

Murder on the Zinderneuf

DOS1984 Free Fall Associates
mychess-splash

Mychess

DOS1984 The Software Toolworks
rogue-1

Rogue

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinuxMac OS1984 Artificial Intelligence Design
Rogue is one of the first RPGs in the history of video gaming. It's a text-based dungeon crawler in which you have to fight your way in the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor. Rogue became popular around 1980 on mainframes an...
shamus-4

Shamus

DOS1984 Synapse Software
Shamus is a maze action game developed by William Mataga and published by Synapse Software in 1982. The game became popular on various home computer platforms of the early 1980s. In Shamus, players control a detective navigating t...
sokoban-3

Soko-Ban

DOS1984 ASCII Corporation
Sokoban is a classic puzzle game first released in 1982 by Hiroyuki Imabayashi for the NEC PC-8801 in Japan and later ported to a number of platforms, including DOS, as Soko-Ban. The name "Sokoban" translates to "warehouse keeper"...
spyhunter-splash

Spy Hunter

DOS1984 Midway Manufacturing Company
styx-splash

Styx

DOS1984 Windmill Software
ancient-art-of-war-01

The Ancient Art of War

DOS1984 Evryware
The Ancient Art of War is a classic video game that was released in the late 1980s. Developed by Evryware and published by Broderbund, it was available on various platforms, including Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The Anc...
xonix-splash

Xonix

DOS1984remake
8088othello-splash

8088 Othello

DOS1985
There’s something oddly poetic about 8088 Othello, a 1985 take on the classic board game that feels like it was programmed by someone who had a personal vendetta against flashy graphics. The visuals are almost nonexistent, t...