The best top down games

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).

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Vulcan: The Tunisian Campaign

DOS1988 Cases Computer Simulations

When Two Worlds War

DOS1993 Impressions Games

Color Buster

DOS1992

Night Mission Pinball

DOS1982 subLOGIC

World tour golf

DOS1985 Electronic Arts

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, the sound is silent protest, and yet - somehow - it works. This is Othello in its purest form: black versus white, brain ...

Meteors

DOS1989 Apogee Software

7 colors

DOS1991 Gamos

7 Colors is one of those puzzle games that sounds simple on paper but ends up consuming your entire afternoon before you even realize it. Released in 1991 for DOS, it throws you into a digital turf war where the weapon of choice is… color. You pick a hue, spread it across the board like a rapidly multiplying fungus, and try to outmaneuver yo...

Temple of Apshai Trilogy

DOS1985 Epyx

The Temple of Apshai Trilogy is a series of classic role-playing games developed by Automated Simulations (later known as Epyx) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These games were among the earliest examples of computer-based RPGs and were influential in shaping the genre.The "Temple of Apshai Trilogy" was notable for its depth of gameplay and intr...

Battle Master

DOS1991 Personal Software Services

In Battle Master (1991), you play as a heavily armored murder-hobo leading an army across a fantasy world that really doesn’t want you there. It’s part action-RPG, part tactical slog, with clunky pathfinding and surprisingly fun chaos. The graphics are gritty, the music growls, and the gameplay feels like someone fed an RTS through a me...

Capitalism Plus

DOSWindows XP/98/951997protected Enlight Software

Kingdoms of Germany

DOS1994 Realism Entertainment

Royal Flush Pinball

DOS1994 Amtex

Dungeon Explorer

DOS1990

Crazy Nick's Parlor Games with Laura Bow

DOS1992 Sierra On-Line

Tubular Worlds

DOS1994

Moraff's Revenge

DOS1988 Moraffware

BitStorm

DOS1999

1999’s BitStorm is what happens when someone decides to make a strategy game and forgets to put the brakes on the caffeine. It’s fast, it’s furious, and you’ll probably lose your first five games before realizing how to build anything that doesn’t explode in five seconds. Set in a vaguely cyberpunkish future full of fl...

Bolo Ball

DOS1992 Soleau Software

Bolo Ball is a DOS game from the mid-1990s. It features a physics-based gameplay where the objective is to knock opponent balls out of an arena. When you start the game, you find yourself in a 2D arena set against a starry, space-like background. You control a colorful ball, which, despite being a 2D sprite, appears somewhat three-dimensional due t...

Bombuzal

DOS1989 Image Works

Part puzzle, part platformer, part “what is even happening,” Bombuzal (1989, DOS) is a game where your job is to blow up every bomb on the screen—while not accidentally turning yourself into pixel confetti. Each level is a tiny tile-based puzzle of doom, requiring careful planning, reckless courage, and a few lucky guesses. The he...