abandonware games sorted by popularity

ZZT (1991, DOS) looks like it was drawn by an enthusiastic ASCII artist with too much time and not enough colors. And yet, it’s brilliant. Part action game, part puzzle adven...

Solar Winds 2: Galaxy continues the space exploration and trading adventure established by its predecessor, giving players a large science-fiction environment to explore. The game ...

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...

Popcorn is a 1988 DOS puzzle game that takes inspiration from the classic brick-breaking formula and adds its own colorful personality. Players control a paddle, bounce a ball, and...

Castle Adventure is what happens when a medieval fantasy RPG gets crammed into a game smaller than your average selfie. ASCII graphics? Check. Typing commands like “GET SWORD...

King’s Bounty is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, originally released in 1990 by New World Computing. It was created by Jon Van Caneghem, also known for the Migh...

The proto-fighting game that walked so Street Fighter could punch. Yie Ar Kung Fu is pure arcade joy: a brave martial artist named Oolong fights a rogue’s gallery of opponent...

Scorched Earth (1991) was the “mother of all games” long before Doom took the title. Two or more tanks face off on a randomly generated terrain, and your only mission i...

Ace of Aces (1987, DOS) is a game where you pilot a WWII plane via a series of still-image panels that suggest action more than deliver it. It’s like a flipbook with ambition...

Based on the legendary Argentine comic, L'Eternauta: Gli Invasori della Città Eterna (1994) is bleak, atmospheric, and proudly uninterested in holding your hand. Set in a sn...

After publishing a plethora of Gold Box titles, SSI decided to release a fantasy RPG based on the Forgotten Realms scenarios of Dungeons & Dragons where the player could create...

Aurora Dibularos is an unusual game with an equally unusual title, presenting a science-fiction setting through a mixture of exploration, action and puzzle-solving. Its world has t...

Stunt Car Racer takes the humble racing game and removes almost everything sensible about it. Instead of ordinary tracks, you get enormous elevated circuits filled with ramps, jump...

Released in 1996 for DOS, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo brings you back to foggy Victorian London, where murders, morphine, and moustaches abound. ...

Snood is a charming puzzle game built around matching colorful creatures and clearing them from the screen before things get out of hand. Released in 1996, it looks deceptively sim...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988) takes everything that made the first game fun and cranks it up a notch. The story begins with tragedy—Marian, the damsel from the first g...

Released in 1982, Deadline is one of Infocom’s classic text adventures, and it doesn’t pull punches. You’re a detective with twelve in-game hours to solve a murde...

Ultimate Soccer Manager taps into the irresistible fantasy of running a football club without ever leaving your chair. Instead of flashy graphics, it offers spreadsheets, statistic...

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used ...

Epic (1992, DOS) lives up to its name—or at least tries very, very hard. It’s a space combat game bursting with ambition, tossing you into dogfights that feel massive e...

Super Pac-Man takes the familiar yellow arcade hero and gives him a slightly more complicated playground than the original maze. Instead of simply eating dots while avoiding ghosts...

Ever wanted to be responsible for ending the world in fewer than ten keypresses? B-1 Nuclear Bomber (1981) gives you that chance, wrapping global annihilation in glorious monochrom...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0 expands the already impressive flight simulation experience with improved graphics, more detailed environments, and a greater sense of realism. Playe...

Chris Sawyer's Locomotion is a transport-management simulation built around the wonderfully addictive business of moving people and cargo from one place to another. Trains are the ...

The Fellowship of the Ring is an early computer adaptation of Tolkien's famous fantasy novel, following the journey of Frodo and his companions through a dangerous Middle-earth fil...

Mickey's Space Adventure sends Mickey Mouse on an imaginative journey beyond Earth, blending exploration, storytelling, and educational elements into a charming computer adventure....

Master of Magic remains one of the finest fantasy strategy games ever created, blending empire building with spellcasting in a world where powerful wizards compete for absolute dom...

Rise of the Robots is a 1994 fighting game built around the idea of heavily armed machines battling through a futuristic industrial world. Players control a combat robot and face i...

In Cutthroats, you’re a diver hired for a treasure-hunting expedition that’s about to go very wrong. This text adventure from Infocom mixes underwater exploration with ...