The best turn based games

Dragonflight (1991) was a German RPG that dared to think big—party-based adventuring, sprawling maps, and a proper fantasy plot. It played like a love letter to Ultima with i...

Rack 'em is a 1988 DOS pool game that brings the classic billiards experience to the computer with a focus on careful aiming, positioning, and tactical play. Players line up shots,...

Redhook's Revenge is a 1993 DOS adventure game built around exploration, danger, and a pirate-flavored setting. Players take part in a swashbuckling journey filled with mysterious ...

Super Battleship brings the classic naval guessing game to the computer, adding enough extra rules and presentation to make sinking ships feel slightly more official. Players deplo...

Ready to guess wildly about the cost of household objects from the comfort of a DOS screen? The Price is Right (1990, DOS) brings the TV game show to your keyboard with a mixture o...

D-Day: The Beginning of the End is not your average “storm the beach” simulator—it’s a grand strategy title that drops you into the nerve-wracking planning ...

Miniature golf is already a whimsical sport, but Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf decides Earth simply isn’t strange enough. Released in 1995, this quirky DOS game sends...

Mines of Titan is a science fiction role-playing adventure set on the harsh surface of Saturn's moon, where survival depends on exploration, resource management, and careful decisi...

Color Buster (1992, DOS) is Sokoban’s rebellious cousin. You push colored blocks across labyrinthine floors like an underpaid warehouse worker in a pastel fever dream. Simple...

Star Wars Chess turns the classic game of chess into a surprisingly noisy Star Wars spectacle. Released in 1993, it keeps the familiar rules but replaces the traditional pieces wit...

Arnhem is the kind of wargame where you spend more time reading hex maps than shooting anything. It’s all about recreating Operation Market Garden — you know, that WWII...

Incursion is a modern love letter to classic tactical RPGs, clearly inspired by tabletop rulesets and games like early Fallout. It throws you into a turn-based world where position...

If you’ve ever stared at a Monopoly board and thought, “This needs more spreadsheets,” then Oligopoly is basically your spiritual home. Released in 1987 for DOS, ...

Wizardry 4: The Return of Werdna flips the script by letting you play the villain, which is as delightful as it is diabolical. You control Werdna, an evil wizard with a knack for c...

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...

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 flas...

Welcome to Aspetra, a 1996 DOS game that tried to cram an epic sci-fi RPG into your beige box PC — and mostly succeeded! Think “Star Trek meets budget constraints.&rdqu...

It’s Boggle (1990, DOS), the digital version of everyone’s favorite game where you try to spell long words while your friend keeps shouting “DOG” over and o...

Back in 1986, when most PC users were still figuring out floppy disks, along came Dr. Ruth Computer Game of Good Sex, a title that promised to educate while entertaining. Imagine t...

In 1990, strategy games were still figuring out how serious they wanted to be, and Frontline sits comfortably in that experimental phase. This DOS title drops players into a tactic...

Released in 1988, Journey to the Center of the Earth draws inspiration from Jules Verne's famous novel and invites players into a subterranean world filled with mysteries and dange...

Laserwars, released in 1994, throws players into futuristic battles where quick reflexes and steady aim matter far more than lengthy speeches about peace. The action is straightfor...

Nerm of Bemer is a 1984 DOS game whose wonderfully mysterious title immediately suggests that the player is about to encounter something unusual. The game belongs to the experiment...

Power Struggle is the kind of strategy game that quietly asks, “Would you like to control the world?” and then immediately throws you into a geopolitical mess. It&rsquo...

Reach for the Stars is a 4X strategy game from before the term “4X” even existed. It’s pure, stripped-down galactic conquest: research tech, colonize worlds, and ...

Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman continues the fantasy adventures of its predecessor, offering another journey filled with exploration, enemies, treasure, and the sort of ancien...

The Astronomy Quiz is a straightforward educational title aimed at players who enjoy looking toward the stars and then discovering how little they actually know about them. Release...

When Two Worlds War is a strategy game built around the uncomfortable proposition that diplomacy has failed and the only remaining argument involves fleets, armies, and industrial ...

Heart of the Maelstrom brings epic dungeon crawling to dizzying heights, challenging players with sprawling levels, fiendish enemies, and puzzles that seem to require a PhD in pati...

In Blitzkrieg: Battle at the Ardennes, you’re not just playing a wargame — you’re being handed a clipboard, a stack of orders, and a freezing cold battlefield in ...