The most popular grid-based games

Civilization II is a turn-based strategy game developed by MicroProse and released in 1996. It's the second installment in the "Civilization" series, created by Sid Meier. The game...

Sid Meier’s Civilization is the game that tricked an entire generation into loving history, city planning, and the occasional world domination. Starting with a tribe of stick...

CivNet is a multiplayer adaptation of the original Sid Meier's Civilization game, released in 1995. It was developed and published by MicroProse for MS-DOS and Windows. This versio...

X-COM: UFO Defense is the granddaddy of tactical strategy, the game that made countless players paranoid about what might be lurking just outside radar range. It blends base manage...

Might and Magic Book One: Secret of the Inner Sanctum is the place where the whole saga begins, and it proudly carries the wild ambition of early computer RPGs. The land of Varn is...

In Might and Magic 2: Gates to Another World, the designers apparently decided that the best way to reward players for finishing the first game was to throw them into a world that ...

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon, also released in 1991, takes everything that worked in the original and expands it thoughtfully. The dungeon design is more varied, ...

Before Ultima 1 came along, role-playing games on PC were about as sophisticated as a pocket calculator. Then Richard Garriott threw players into a digital world full of space trav...

Released in 1991, Eye of the Beholder brought classic dungeon crawling into the digital age with style and confidence. Set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, it delivers grid-...

Test of Time is what happens when Civilization II meets a Star Trek convention. This version takes the classic formula and adds space colonization, fantasy realms, and weird alien ...

The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate is the third and final installment in the original The Bard’s Tale trilogy, developed by Interplay and published by Electronic Arts i...

The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown was developed by Interplay Productions and published by Electronic Arts for DOS and other systems. The game takes place in the fictional ...

A direct sequel to Deathwatch, Ancients 2: Approaching Evil is like returning to your childhood neighborhood, except everyone’s still trying to kill you. Released in 1994, it...

Dungeon Hack is a dungeon-crawling role-playing game (RPG) developed by DreamForge Intertainment and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). It was released in 1993 for MS-...

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a role-playing video game that was first released in 1981. It's one of the pioneering titles in the dungeon-crawling genre and one ...

Rogue is one of the first RPGs in the history of video gaming. It's a text-based dungeon crawler in which you have to fight your way in the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor....

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is one of the most influential and innovative role-playing games (RPGs) in video game history. Released in 1985 by Richard Garriott under the Origin ...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Wasteland is the kind of game that quietly changed history while pretending to be just another post-apocalyptic RPG. Long before wastelands were fashionab...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

Dungeon Master is a classic computer role-playing game (CRPG) developed by FTL Games and released in 1987. It's considered one of the pioneering titles in the dungeon crawler genre...

HeroQuest is a classic video game adaptation of the popular board game HeroQuest, released in 1991 by Gremlin Interactive. HeroQuest faithfully recreates the turn-based, ...

Wizardry 4: The Return of Werdna flips the script by letting you play the villain, which is as delightful as it is diabolical. You control Werdna, an evil wizard with a knack for c...

Ah, 2400 A.D. A game where you can rebel against a robot police state… by slowly walking around in beige. Released in 1988, it’s what happens when you mix Orwellian dy...

Released in 1984, Hack is one of those games that quietly shaped an entire genre while pretending not to care if you understood it or not. This early roguelike doesn’t bother...

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...

X-COM: Terror from the Deep (also known as X-COM 2) is a DOS science fiction tactical strategy game and the sequel to one of the most popular DOS games in history, X-COM: UFO ...

Supaplex is a classic puzzle game released in 1991 by Think!Ware Development for MS-DOS and Amiga. It is heavily inspired by Boulder Dash but introduces more complex mechanics.&nbs...

Fans of Dragonlance novels rejoiced at Dark Queen of Krynn, a Gold Box RPG where you battle alongside iconic heroes in a desperate fight against Takhisis, the dark goddess herself....

In the 25th century, bureaucracy is still awful—but now you also have laser guns. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday is a surprisingly solid sci-fi RPG that blends space oper...