Games released in 1988

Dark Side (1988) is a first-person sci-fi adventure set on a moon orbiting a planet that’s about to be destroyed. No pressure. The gameplay combines exploration with puzzle-solving, wrapped in surprisingly ambitious 3D graph...

Better known as Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior in some regions, Death Sword (1988) is remembered less for its deep gameplay and more for its infamous decapitation move. Swing your sword just right and—plop—your oppone...

Released in 1988, Decisive Battles of the American Civil War: Vol. 1 is as straightforward as its title. You get historical accuracy, a serious strategy engine, and about as many graphical flourishes as a tax form. Yet the depth i...

Deluxe Paint, often abbreviated as DPaint, was a popular bitmap graphics editor and animation software package. It was developed by Electronic Arts (EA) and released in the mid-1980s. Deluxe Paint was initially designed for the Co...

In 1988, kids with floppy disks instead of smartphones got Designasaurus, a quirky blend of education and prehistoric fantasy. The premise: design your own dinosaur and see if it survives the brutal test of Mesozoic life. You pick...

Yes, Dolphin Boating Simulator is a real thing, and no, it’s not about dolphins driving boats (sadly). Released in 1988, this oddball DOS sim tasks you with navigating speedboats around watery tracks while avoiding obstacles...

Donald’s Alphabet Chase is the video game equivalent of hiding fridge magnets and watching a duck hunt them down. In this 1988 edutainment title, the mischievous alphabet letters run away, and it’s up to Donald to chas...

Before co-op brawlers were everywhere, there was Double Dragon (1988 on DOS). Two brothers, one kidnapped girlfriend, and enough street thugs to populate a small city—that’s the setup. The game is all about walking rig...

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988) takes everything that made the first game fun and cranks it up a notch. The story begins with tragedy—Marian, the damsel from the first game, is unceremoniously gunned down. Billy and Jim...

Released in 1988, Dracula in London was part strategy, part board game, and all atmosphere. You weren’t just staking vampires; you were managing resources, characters, and time while racing against the Prince of Darkness him...

Released in 1988, Dream Zone was a surreal adventure where you explore your own subconscious after being sucked into a dream machine. It’s colorful, strange, and often unsettling, with puzzles that don’t always play by...

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 players, designed to make the Dungeon Master’...

Dungeon of Shalan is one of those games that greets you with the words “You awaken in a dark room” and then proceeds to make that darkness your entire reality. Released in 1988, it’s an old-school dungeon crawler...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demonstration, ELIZA used pattern matching and substitut...