Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Games set during the cold war period

There was a time when the two major political superpowers were at war, but nobody knew. U.S.A. and the former U.S.S.R. used spies, subterfuge, blockades, political and military influence all over the world. The so called "Cold War" era lasted decades and ended in 1989 with ...

Business simulations: merchants, managers, CEOs

Business simulations (also called tycoon simulations) are video games that focus on the economic and the management side of running a business. In tycoon games the player can be in charge of any kind of business: a company, a sports team, an hospital, an amusement park, even a drug ...

CODiE Awards 1996: Dark Forces, Ascendancy, IndyCar Racing 2

In 1996 quite a few things happened. Charles and Diana got divorced, France finally stops nuclear tests in the Pacific, Nintendo releases the Nintendo 64 and the mad cow disease hits Britain. Deep Blue defeats chess champion Kasparov, Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 3 and Windows NT 4.The 1996 CODiE awards go to an almost ...

Commander Keen: side-scrolling platformers

In the 90's PCs weren't exactly popular as a gaming system for platform games. The whole Commander Keen series was an exception. Created by a trio of talented designers (John Carmack, John Romero and Tom Hall), Commander Keen games - side scrolling platformers - contributed to put PCs under the ...

David Braben: an Elite game designer

David Braben is a British game developer and designer, also founder and CEO of Frontier Developments plc. He's best known for co-creating Elite in 1984 (with Ian Bell), the space trading and exploration game that started a whole genre. Name: David Braben Born on: 02/01/1964Occupation: game designer, programmer and entrepreneurKnown for: ...

Old school forgotten RPGs from the past

RPGs are a strange animal when it comes to old-school PC gaming. If you exclude huge hits and successful franchises, the games that remains are often obscure RPGs, sometimes so awful that playing them is a pain in the keyboard. There are of course exceptions: underdogs that somehow were a ...

GOG Lunar Sale

It's the year of the rat in the chinese calendar and, surprise surprise, there a GOG sale (and a Steam sale... and a Humble Bundle sale... and... more sales on almost every digital distribution online platform). A plethora of games on GOG - old and new, are avaiable at very ...

The best abandonware games of 2019

2019 has ended. Each game in the "top abandonware games" chart of Abandonware DOS received many votes. This means that you, dear visitor, care about these games, you loved them when they were released and they left something in you... a pleasant memory, a warm feeling of nostalgia maybe?This ...

Abandonware DOS in 2019: what's changed and what's new

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who donated a few bucks to help me keep working on Abandonware DOS. THANK YOU, THANK YOU and again THANK YOU! In 2019 I changed the way that I usually add content on Abandonware DOS. This means that it takes me less ...

Old school: first-person party-based CRPGs

Party-based role-playing games with a first person perspective became popular after the release of Dungeon Master in 1989. Before Dungeon Master only a handful RPGs used first person, the Bard's Tale and Wizardry series among others. Dungeon Master managed to create a very neat user interface without sacrificing the gameplay.Some ...

Death Sword (AKA Barbarian): the art of fighting slowly

Death Sword (also known as Barbarian in Europe), is a fighting game developed by Palace Software, set in a fantasy world full of huge sword-wielding barbarians. Compared to modern brawlers, Death Sword gameplay may seem slow, but at the time it was considered adequate. Instead of rushing into multiple chain ...

GOG Winter Sale

The GOG Winter Sale is here! And this year, GOG is giving away Wasteland 2 (developed by inXile Entertainment). I'm sure many of you retrogamers, remember the first Wasteland, one of the few post-apocalyptic RPGs for DOS.

Simulation games: Team Yankee, Hill Street Blues, Epic and more

Simulation and vehicle simulation games are often the least remembered video game genres by retro gamers. While many simulations did achieve a certain degree of success back in the day, quite a few fell in the dark pit of forgotten retro games. Let's see how many of these you can ...

Play abandoned roguelike RPGs in your browser

Roguelikes are peculiar kind of RPG that always intrigued me. Permadeath and procedurally generated dungeons means a very high replayability. The history of roguelikes has its roots in the early age of video gaming. The first roguelike dates back to the 70s!Abandonware DOS hosts a few good old roguelikes, ...

A niche genre: Metroidvania

Metroidvania is a made up word born from the merge of two game series titles: Metroid and Castlevania. Both games share gameplay and design elements that defines the genre. Metroidvania games are platform games featuring a game world that is freely explorable. Certain areas can be accessed only with player ...

Hard Drivin' in vector graphics

"Hard Drivin', a fast moving, solid-filled vector graphic racing game, gave you the chance to compete against the clock on two separate tracks: a speed track and a stunt track. And for those skilled enough to get a good enough time on either of these, there was a championship ...

Windows 3.1 classic games

Long before the first successful Windows operating systems, Microsoft developed Windows 3.1 (an "operating environtment"). Games that ran under Windows 3.1 weren't so many. In fact, most of them are little more than puzzle games, card games and simple strategy games. That doesn't mean Windows 3.1 lacked good games; in fact, a few ...

GOG Halloween Sale

Every year GOG hosts an Halloween Sale with lots of scary games on sale. Some of the games on sale this year are: Blood 2, Alan Wake, Sunless Sea, The Last Door, F.E.A.R., the Blackwell Bundle, Gabriel Knight series, Grim Dawn, Grim Fandango, Still Life, the whole Witcher ...

Lesser known old school RPGs for DOS

Ultima, Wizardry, Fallout, Might & Magic are among the most popular old school RPGs that every RPG fan played or know something about. However, lots of RPGs published in the distant past never reached a wide popularity. Some the RPGs uploaded today on Abandonware DOS are not exactly well known, ...

Minesweeping at the office

The Microsoft Windows 3.x family of operating environment wasn't known for games, but it popularized the Windows software pretty much everywhere. One of the best known Windows 3.x games was Minesweeper.Minesweeper was a simple puzzle game that required the player to clear a field full of mines and numbers ...