Abandonware adventure games

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the game combines historical fiction with mystery-solving gameplay.In 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, players take on the role of a detective investigating ...

Based loosely on Jules Verne’s famous tale, this game lets you live your steampunk submarine dreams with all the elegance of a DOS interface. You command the Nautilus, explore the ocean depths, and encounter strange sea creatures who usually just want to ruin your day. It’s moody, atmospheric, and probably the only game where you’...

Welcome to 2112, a game that predicted a grim techno-future back when floppy disks still ruled. This DOS-era oddity throws you into a world that’s part cyberpunk, part fever dream, and entirely confusing. It’s got clunky controls, yes, but also that charming old-school ambition where every corridor hides either doom or disappointment. T...

This 1996 point-and-click western is what you’d get if Lucky Luke and Monkey Island had an awkward but lovable baby. 3 Skulls of the Toltecs throws you into a spaghetti western full of puzzles, puns, and characters with more mustache than common sense. Expect to outwit bandits, impersonate priests, and hunt ancient treasure while the game thr...

Based on the cult fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, 9 Princes in Amber is a 1985 text adventure that assumes two things: you’ve read the books, and you enjoy typing things like “look tree” and “use sword” with surgical precision. If you haven’t read the novels, good luck. The game throws you into a dense, shape-sh...

A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mildly confusing. You play as Dudley, a man with problems that range from the mundane to the absurd, depending on your choices and sense of direction - both literal and narr...

If you ever wanted to play a video game that doubles as a philosophical think piece, A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) is your ride. Released for DOS and Macintosh, this is one of Infocom’s most ambitious works - a text adventure where you’re not a hero with a sword, but an AI tasked with simulating the future of society. Exciting, right? ...

A Night with Troi (1991) sounds like a fan fiction gone too far - and, well, that’s pretty much what it is. It’s a DOS-based “adventure” in the loosest sense, where you find yourself on the Enterprise with one goal: seduce Counselor Deanna Troi. Classy, right? The graphics are crude, the writing even cruder, and the whole ex...

A Personal Nightmare (1989) blends horror and detective work into one spooky little cocktail of 1980s DOS game design. You return to your hometown to find it overrun by demonic possession, creepy villagers, and enough red flags to wallpaper a crypt. The game mixes first-person exploration with point-and-click mechanics, and while it does try to be ...

Acheton (1987, DOS) is one of those text adventures where the game cheerfully tries to kill you every five minutes — and does so with words. You're tossed into a sprawling, brain-melting maze of puzzles so obscure they might as well be written in Klingon. There's no map, no mercy, and definitely no hand-holding. But for the brave (or masochis...

Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventure gave players a taste of magic, mystery, and constant parser frustration. “Take rock”? Too vague. “Pick up stone”? Try again. But if you cracked...

African Adventure is one of those games that feels like it was made during a two-hour layover at the airport - but somehow, it works. Set in the savannah, it combines survival, exploration, and a splash of educational trivia (probably). You’ll dodge wild animals, search for artifacts, and occasionally wonder if the devs had ever seen a map of...

Step into the rabbit hole - no, really, step carefully, or you’ll glitch right through the floor. Alice in Wonderland (1989, DOS) is a surreal, side-scrolling adventure that loosely follows the Lewis Carroll classic, if Lewis Carroll had a CRT monitor and a questionable understanding of collision detection. You play as Alice, wandering throug...

In Altered Destiny, a perfectly average guy named P.J. Barrett gets sucked into a bizarre alien dimension because he answered a phone call. Seriously. What follows is a classic point-and-click adventure filled with weird puzzles, stranger characters, and the kind of surreal landscapes that make Salvador Dalí look restrained. Packed with humo...

From the mind of Michael Crichton comes Amazon, a game that lets you live out your jungle explorer fantasies—without the bugs or dysentery. You’re off to the Amazon to recover a missing expedition and probably get into mortal peril along the way. Think Indiana Jones if he had access to 16 colors and floppy disks. Packed with weird humor...

Think Indiana Jones meets 90s daytime TV. Amazon: Guardians of Eden is a cinematic point-and-click adventure filled with jungles, conspiracies, and more hair gel than any explorer should carry. As a square-jawed hero investigating his brother’s disappearance, you'll uncover ancient secrets, flirt awkwardly, and solve puzzles that may or may n...

Amerzone is like stepping into a dream where logic is optional and atmosphere is everything. You play a journalist unraveling the mystery of a dying explorer’s last journey, which involves a lost civilization, mystical eggs, and a whole lot of lush, surreal landscapes. The gameplay leans heavily on point-and-click exploration with puzzles tha...

In Amnesia, you wake up in a hotel room with no idea who you are, where you are, or why someone wants you dead. And no, this isn’t a gritty FPS—it’s a text adventure. That’s right, no graphics, just your imagination and 40,000 lines of written paranoia. Written by Thomas M. Disch (yes, the actual science fiction author), it&...

Fievel's back, and this time it’s personal. An American Tail: Fievel Goes West lets you step into the little cowboy boots of everyone’s favorite Russian mouse as he tries to save the Wild West from cat-shaped villainy. It’s a platformer aimed at kids, but the difficulty curve seems to have been designed by someone who hates childr...

Angel 3 is that kind of DOS game where you sit down thinking "I'll give it five minutes" and three hours later you're still trying to figure out what just happened. Released in 1990, it's part shooter, part surrealist fever dream, and entirely unapologetic about being weird. The graphics are primitive, the sound effects are loud enough to scare you...

Armaeth: The Lost Kingdom looks like a cousin of Prince of Persia who dropped out of school to study magic mushrooms. You play a vaguely heroic dude exploring a crumbling kingdom full of traps, bats, and possibly regret. The platforming is floaty, the combat’s mostly guesswork, and the animations are... enthusiastic. But for all its quirks, t...

Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur is a text adventure with occasional graphics, in which you, the not-yet-king, bumble your way through Camelot trying to prove you’re not just some kid with a weird haircut. The writing is witty, the puzzles devilish, and the parser only mildly homicidal. It’s part history, part fantasy, and entirely charm...

Atlantis: The Lost Tales is a graphic adventure game developed by Cryo Interactive and released in 1997. It is the first in a series of games set around the legendary lost city of Atlantis. You play as Seth, a young hero who becomes entangled in the political and mysterious happenings of the city. Seth is tasked with finding the missing queen,...

If Shakespeare wrote video games and then decided, “You know what this needs? A parser and some pixelated drama,” you'd get Avon. In this interactive fiction gem from 1989, you step into the slippers of a humble page trying to save the day in the royal court. Expect puzzles with Elizabethan flair, cryptic clues, and the occasional "Thou...

B.A.T. is a cyberpunk-themed adventure game released in 1989 by UBI Soft for various platforms, including Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and later the Commodore 64. It blends adventure, role-playing, and simulation elements in a futuristic setting. You play as an agent of B.A.T. (Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters), a secret intergalactic organization...

Ah, B.A.T. 2, the cyberpunk sequel that decided the future needed more trench coats, tech jargon, and inexplicably confusing interfaces. Released in 1992 for DOS, this game throws you into the seedy underbelly of interstellar espionage with a UI that feels like it was designed by a drunk robot. You'll juggle stats, gadgets, and the occasional exist...

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 the worst text parser since your last therapy session. Classic Infocom, meaning great writing and an interface that hates you. But hey, if you’ve ever wanted to type ...

Imagine stepping into a sci-fi fever dream written during a caffeine crash, and you’ll get Bargon Attack (1992). This French point-and-click adventure is stylish, surreal, and frequently confusing—but in a charming “what on Earth is going on” kind of way. The humor is offbeat, the art is comic-book cool, and the plot has mor...

If you ever wanted to play a point-and-click adventure where the protagonists have the combined IQ of a slice of cheese, Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity is your masterpiece. Join these brainless legends as they attempt to join a gang, find nachos, and say "heh heh" at literally everything. The puzzles are weird, the humor’s dumber t...

Beneath a Steel Sky is a classic point-and-click adventure game released in 1994, developed by Revolution Software. Set in a dystopian, cyberpunk future, the game is renowned for its rich atmosphere and distinctive artwork. The game follows Robert Foster, who, after being abducted from his tribal home in the Outback, finds himself in Union Cit...