abandonware games sorted by popularity

Mixed-up Fairy Tales takes the familiar world of classic fairy tales and gives it a playful shake, scattering characters, objects, and stories into a wonderfully confused adventure...

Hugo’s House of Horrors is a classic example of early adventure gaming, complete with pixelated graphics and puzzles that require a mix of logic and guesswork. Released in 1990, ...

Strap in and crawl through the mud - Airborne Ranger (1988) is here to chew bubblegum and infiltrate enemy lines. And it's all out of bubblegum. This tactical action game lets you ...

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...

Traffic department 2192 imagines a future where keeping the streets safe apparently requires considerably more shooting than most traffic departments would recommend. The game comb...

Wing Commander: Privateer takes the universe of Wing Commander and opens the door considerably wider. Instead of following a strictly military career, you are free to explore space...

Snake Logan is back, and this time the lab is... hidden! The Hidden Lab cranks up the challenge with more grotesque mutants, more lethal traps, and slightly improved sarcasm. It&rs...

Neuromancer is a 1989 adventure game inspired by William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel, and it takes players into a world of hackers, corporations, artificial intelligence, cyberspace...

Amarillo Slim's 7 Card Stud turns the classic poker variant into a computer card game with the legendary Amarillo Slim providing the name and atmosphere. Seven-card stud is all abo...

Drakkhen (1989) was weird—wonderfully, gloriously weird. A 3D RPG before 3D was really ready, it let you roam a strange fantasy world full of surreal landscapes, bizarre enem...

Shadow President is a 1993 DOS strategy game that places players in the Oval Office with an uncomfortable amount of responsibility. You must manage the United States, deal with int...

Norton Utilities 8 is a substantial collection of maintenance and diagnostic tools designed to keep DOS computers healthy, organized, and recoverable. Rather than being a single ap...

Theme Park turns amusement-park management into a colorful strategy game where every roller coaster, burger stand and souvenir shop can become part of your grand financial empire. ...

Operation Stealth is a 1990 adventure game that combines international intrigue, espionage, and the sort of dangerous missions where the protagonist probably should have taken a qu...

Based on a book series almost nobody remembers, Below The Root drops you into a serene world of treehouses, talking children, and deeply philosophical moral choices. Combat does no...

Come one, come all, to the saddest circus ever pixelated. In Ballyhoo, you're stuck in a depressing carnival trying to solve a kidnapping while dealing with clowns, carnies, and th...

F-15 Strike Eagle II takes everything that made the original a classic and cranks it up like a jet engine at full throttle. The visuals are sharper, the missions are more varied, a...

Panza Kick Boxing is a 1991 sports simulation that takes the brutal world of kickboxing seriously enough to reward technique while still remaining accessible to determined newcomer...

Wipeout is a futuristic racing game built around speed, aggressive competition, and vehicles that apparently have no interest whatsoever in ordinary road safety. The anti-gravity c...

Penthouse Electric Jigsaw is a 1990 puzzle game that combines the relaxing activity of assembling jigsaw puzzles with a distinctly computer-era twist. Players recreate images by mo...

If you’ve ever wanted to play interstellar Monopoly while arguing with alien neighbors, Deadlock: Planetary Conquest is your ticket. Released in 1996, this strategy gem tosse...

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is one of the great comedy adventures, combining clever puzzles, unforgettable characters, and writing sharp enough to cut through a pirate ship'...

Dangerous Dave is the kind of platformer that defined the early ’90s shareware scene: simple, fast, and just tricky enough to make you shout at your monitor. You guide Dave t...

Sharkey’s 3D Pool (1990, DOS) delivers billiards with a dash of personality, proving that even virtual felt can have flair. The 3D perspective was impressive for its time, gi...

Super Solvers: OutNumbered! takes arithmetic and turns it into a frantic chase against villains, proving that mathematics becomes considerably more interesting when somebody is try...

Take American football, remove the rules, add swords and fireballs, and throw in some screaming. That is Brutal Sports Football. This is not about touchdowns. This is about surviva...

Released in 1990, Logo introduces players to programming concepts through the famous turtle graphics system, transforming coding into an approachable creative activity. Rather than...

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 ...

The final part of the original trilogy, Zork III ditches treasure-hunting in favor of introspection, moral puzzles, and the looming presence of the Dungeon Master—basically t...

F-22 Lightning II brings the flight sim genre into the late ’90s with faster action, flashier visuals, and a jet that feels like it came straight out of a sci-fi movie. The F...