Abandonware puzzle games sorted by release date

ASCII art has never been so morbid. Classic Hangman is exactly what it says on the tin: guess the word or watch your little stick figure meet a tragic end. Letters become lifelines...

Boulder Dash is a classic action-puzzle video game that was first released in 1984 by First Star Software. In Boulder Dash, players control a character named Rockford as he di...

Sokoban is a classic puzzle game first released in 1982 by Hiroyuki Imabayashi for the NEC PC-8801 in Japan and later ported to a number of platforms, including DOS, as Soko-Ban. T...

Boulder Dash II is the sequel to the original Boulder Dash game. It was released in 1985 and follows the same basic gameplay mechanics as its predecessor while introducing new leve...

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 Airball (1987), you don’t play a knight, a space marine, or a plumber - you play a literal ball of air. Trapped in an isometric nightmare of spikes, fans, and poison gas, ...

Boulder Dash Construction Kit is both a full game and a level editor, built around the gameplay mechanics of the original Boulder Dash (1984). You still play as Rockford, the pixel...

Let’s be honest—Centerfold Squares (1988) is what happened when someone asked, “What if Qix but hornier?” You draw squares to reveal pixelated images of... ...

Classic Concentration brings the Alex Trebek game show to DOS, complete with low-res puzzles and that addictive memory card-flipping mechanic. Match two elephants, and boom—y...

Donald’s Alphabet Chase is the video game equivalent of hiding fridge magnets and watching a duck hunt them down. In this 1988 edutainment title, the mischievous alphabet let...

Before Tetris conquered the world, Nyet gave DOS users their own block-stacking fix. It’s essentially a clone, but with its own quirks and rough edges — the kind of thi...

Ever wanted to be on a game show without leaving your CRT-lit basement? The $100,000 Pyramid brings you that chance. You guess words. Your partner gives clues. Sometimes you wonder...

Weird Dreams is an abandoned action - puzzle game developed and released by Rainbird Software in 1988 for DOS, but also published for Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64. Weird Dreams is...

Zoom! is a puzzle game that desperately wants to be cool. You're a sunglasses-wearing smiley face cruising down psychedelic gridlines while dodging blobs and filling in tiles like ...

Archipelagos is like a fever dream after watching too much Myst. You’re dropped onto strange, floating islands inhabited by stone monoliths and evil terrain-infecting sludge....