abandonware games sorted by popularity

After the success of Ultima 6: The False Prophet, Origin decided to "create worlds" not part of the popular Ultima series (strictly speaking) using the same engine of Ultima 6. The...

Imagine Marble Madness had a caffeine overdose and fell into a platformer. That’s Bumpy’s Arcade Fantasy. You control a perpetually bouncing ball named Bumpy (creative,...

Dark Ages Volume I: Prince of Destiny introduces you to the world of Agroth, where magic, monsters, and your questionable combat skills collide. You play as a hero destined to save...

Zeliard is a fantasy platformer/RPG hybrid that has all the trappings of a classic quest: a brave knight, an evil demon, a princess in distress, and an unreasonable number of bats....

Ugh! answers the eternal question: what if a stone-age delivery service were the basis for an entire video game? You play as a caveman whose main skills include grunting, flying a ...

Solomon’s Key is an arcade puzzle-platformer developed by Tecmo and released in 1986. It gained popularity for its challenging gameplay and was later ported to various home s...

Escape from Delirium feels like someone took a pulp adventure novel, dipped it in a bucket of chaos, and fed it to a DOS system. You wake up with amnesia (because of course you do)...

Spacewar is one of the earliest digital computer games and is often considered the first interactive video game. It was created in 1962 by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne W...

DX-Ball 2 is a popular brick-breaking game that was first released in 1998 by Longbow Digital Arts. It serves as a sequel to the original DX-Ball, which was inspired by the classic...

Released in 1984, Frogger Jr. takes the familiar Frogger concept and gives it a slightly friendlier, more educational twist. Levels are themed around letters, numbers, and simple l...

Darklands is what happens when medieval Europe gets even darker than it already was. This 1992 RPG drops you into the Holy Roman Empire, but don’t expect knights in shining a...

Supaplex is a classic puzzle game released in 1991 by Think!Ware Development for MS-DOS and Amiga. It is heavily inspired by Boulder Dash but introduces more complex mechanics.&nbs...

Ah, Lula: The Sexy Empire (1997, Windows) — the game that tried to make adult business management classy and failed spectacularly. You play Lula, a buxom entrepreneur trying ...

Boulder Dash is a classic action-puzzle video game that was first released in 1984 by First Star Software. In Boulder Dash, players control a character named Rockford as he di...

Before Diablo made clicking on dungeons cool, DarkSpyre was already throwing players into labyrinths filled with monsters and puzzles. Released in 1990, it combines hack-and-slash ...

Steel Panthers is the first game in the Steel Panthers series. It was released in 1995 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). This initial release laid the foundation for the series...

Phantasmagoria is a point-and-click horror adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line, released in 1995. Directed by Roberta Williams, Phantasmagoria departed from Si...

No relation to Dune (except for being a total rip-off), Arrakis is a homebrew strategy game that feels like a tribute to the sandiest planet in sci-fi. You mine spice, fight vaguel...

Before Remedy Entertainment was known for moody shooters and mind-bending narratives, they gave us Death Rally in 1996—a top-down racer with a mean streak. Imagine Mario Kart...

Released in 1993 for DOS, A320 Airbus is less “Top Gun” and more “Intro to Aeronautical Bureaucracy.” It’s a flight simulator so realistic, even real ...