abandonware games sorted by release date

If you ever wanted to roleplay in a text adventure where a coconut is of utmost importance, Beyond Zork has your back. This is Infocom at its most delightfully weird: part RPG, par...

Black Monday (1987) combines economic panic with the thrill of—wait for it—spreadsheet navigation. It's like Wolf of Wall Street without the fun, drugs, or DiCaprio. Yo...

With a name like Blort!, you'd expect a fart joke or a kids’ cartoon gone wrong, but no—it’s a 1987 arcade-style blaster for DOS. You play as a cosmic defender sh...

Welcome to Border Zone (1987, DOS), where the Cold War is hot and your only weapon is your brain (and maybe a good map). This text-based espionage thriller from Infocom combines sp...

Borland Eureka: the Solver is an abandoned text-based application developed by Borland Software Corporation and released in 1987 for DOS. The product is designed to solve complex p...

Borland Turbo Basic was a programming language developed by Borland, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Turbo Basic was part of the Turbo series of progr...

Boulder Dash Construction Kit is both a full game and a level editor, built around the gameplay mechanics of the original Boulder Dash (1984). You still play as Rockford, the pixel...

Douglas Adams, the twisted genius behind Hitchhiker’s Guide, brings you the most terrifying adventure of all: paperwork. Bureaucracy turns mundane modern life into a text-bas...

Do you find spreadsheets thrilling? Does the idea of profit margins make your heart race? Then Business Simulator is your kind of party. It’s all about running a faceless com...

Back in 1987, Crazy Cars asked the eternal question: how fast can you go before the road becomes an abstract blur? Armed with a sleek sports car and the confidence of someone who&r...

Released in 1987, this game has you waking up in a toilet stall with no memory of who you are. As detective Ace Harding, you must clear your name and restore your memories. It's li...

In this 1987 DOS game, you delve into a dungeon filled with traps and monsters. Solve puzzles, defeat enemies, and uncover the secrets of the forge. It's like playing Dungeons &...

Ah, Dizzy—the little egg that could. Released in 1987, this puzzle-platformer puts you in the delicate shell of an egg who somehow manages to roll, jump, and carry objects wi...

Based on Anne McCaffrey’s novels, Dragonriders of Pern (1987) is an odd duck. It tries to blend diplomacy, strategy, and a dash of action into one package. You don’t ju...

In 1987, Driller arrived as a revolutionary 3D game that looked light-years ahead of its time. Using the Freescape engine, it let players explore a fully 3D world—on a DOS ma...

Named after the famously outspoken baseball manager, Earl Weaver Baseball takes the sport seriously, sometimes almost aggressively so. This isn’t about flashy graphics or arc...

Elite isn’t just a game; it’s a lifestyle choice. This 1987 DOS version throws you into a vast, uncaring galaxy and says, “Good luck.” There’s trading...

Empire: Wargame of the Century feels like a military textbook that accidentally became entertaining. Spanning centuries of warfare, it combines grand strategy with a surprisingly a...

Gnome Ranger is an abandoned fantasy adventure game, developed and published by Level 9 Computing in 1987 for DOS. Gnome Ranger was designed by Peter Austin who also designed the s...

Infiltrator drops you into the boots of a helicopter pilot who also happens to be a stealth operative—because the ’80s had no patience for specialization. Between air m...

If you’ve ever wondered what the world of finance might look like as a video game—minus the existential dread—Inside Trader has you covered. This quirky DOS title...