Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Adventure Construction Set: build your own CRPG

Adventure Construction Set is an abandoned application developed by Stuart Smith and published for DOS, Amiga, Apple II and Commodore 64 by Electronic Arts in 1987. As the name suggests, ACS is a game-building system (we're talking about adventure RPGs) that lets you edit maps, items, creatures, etc. Included with ACS is ...

Frederik Pohl's Gateway: text adventure 2.0

Frederik Pohl's Gateway is one of the best abandoned adventures games from Legend Entertainment. Gateway is an interactive fiction with graphics and an improved interface (unusual for IFs), based on the Frederik Pohl's novel Gateway. Tt was designed by Michael Verdu and Glen R. Dahlgren and published by Legend Entertainment ...

The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone is an abandoned sci-fi themed adventure game based on the popular TV series of the same name. The Twilight zone released in 1988 by First Row Software Publishing for DOS and Amiga. At it's core, The Twilight Zone is a text adventure, so you have to type in ...

Legend Entertainment: interactive fiction

Legend was a developer who created quite a few adventure games. The first ones were interactive fiction adventures with a unique interface (Spellcasting 101, Gateway, etc.). You could type commands and read room descriptions, but you could also click on a list of verbs, a compass to move from room to ...

Wayne's World: from movie to game

Wayne's World is an abandoned point and click adventure game based on the movie of the same name. In Wayne's World you control both the characters of Wayne and Garth (created by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) in a quest to save their TV show. Wayne's World was ...

Gobliiins: half adventure, half puzzle game

Gobliiins is a peculiar adventure game designed by Pierre Gilhodes, developed by French company Coktel Vision and released by Sierra On-Line in 1991 for DOS, Mac, Amiga and Atari ST. In Gobliiins, you control multiple goblins and you must find a way to progress to the next area by solving typical ...

Canceled game: Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans

There was one time, in the mid nineties, when Blizzard was developing a point & click adventure game set in the Warcraft universe. Unfortunately the game was canceled after a few years of troubled development. The few players that were able to grab an almost working copy weren't impressed: it ...

Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz

Zork Zero is a very well documented and user friendly game. Overall, it is a worthy addition to the Zork series and is, by far, the best one to date. Players who like text games will definitely love this game. Even those who don't usually like text games or are "...

The Magnetic Scrolls Collection: interactive fiction

Magnetic Scrolls was one of the finest developer companies dedicated to Interactive Fiction. The Magnetic Scrolls Collection is a trilogy of Magnenic Scrolls adventures remade using the Wonderland engine: Fish!, Corruption, The Guild of Thieves. The new window-based interface made text-adventuring easy even for gamers not used to a text-only ...

Classic adventure: Maniac Mansion

Maniac Mansion is one of the most famous point and click adventure games developed by Lucasfilm Games and designed by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick. The story is a blend of old sci fi and horror b movies and the player can choose between many characters, each one with a ...

From Sierra Online: Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist

Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist is a comedy point & click adventure game set in the old American West designed by Al Lowe and Josh Mandel, developed and released by Sierra On-Line in 1993 for DOS, Windows and Macintosh. Initially released on floppy, Freddy Pharkas was later re-released on CD-ROM as a ...

Bureaucracy: interactive fiction

Bureaucracy is an abandoned text-adventure game designed by Douglas Adams (yes, the writer of The Hitchhiker Guide of the Galaxy), developed and published by Infocom in 1987. Bureaucracy is a peculiar interactive fiction; the game challenges you to solve frustrating bureaucratic problems in a world populated by strange characters. Game info ...

Point & click: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a graphical point and click adventure game created by LucasArts and published in 1992, based on the popular movie character. As the famous archaeologist Indiana Jones, you will travel the world searching for the mythical land of Atlantis. Fate of Atlantis is the ...

Maniac Mansion Deluxe: a remake

Maniac Mansion Deluxe is the unofficial sequel to the acclaimed point & click adventure game released by LucasFilm in 1987. Maniac Mansion Deluxe it's a fan-made adventure developed by LucasFans Games and released in 2004 and it's a complete remake of Maniac Mansion in every aspect, developed using the Adventure Game Studio ...

Retro adventure: Future Wars Adventure in Time

"The look and gameplay of Future Wars owes a lot to the Sierra On-Line style of arcade adventure. But, where the Sierra games are simple and quite accessible, Future Wars is complex and hard to get into. I'd say curiosity is probably the main motivating force when playing this ...

It Came From The Desert: giant ants from the 50s

It Came from the Desert is an abandonware action-adventure game developed by Cinemaware and released in 1990 for PC (DOS) and Amiga. It Came From the Desert is an action-adventure game with a peculiar flavor: it's set in the 50s, in the USA, and it's based on those old monster movies ...

Simon The Sorcerer: point and click humor

Simon the Sorcerer is adventure game designed by Simon Woodroffe, developed and published by Adventure Soft and released in 1993. Often overlooked, Simon The Sorcerer is one of the finest point & click adventure games ever designed for DOS. In an era dominated by LucasFilm Games (later renamed LucasArts) and Sierra, ...

Space Questing with Sierra On-Line

Space Quest games are all somewhat "abandoned". Sierra is defunct and no one is maintaining the old Space Quest games. (Un)fortunately a few digital stores have Space Quest games in their catalog (see GOG) and that's why almost all Sierra games on Abandonware DOS aren't available for download.The ...

The Zork universe: an underground empire

Zork is one of the most popular text-adventures and one of the first interactive fiction games ever created. The first Zork was developed in the seventies and ported on various platform by Infocom in the early 80s. Infocom was one of the most prolific developers of text-adventures for home ...

Loom: a fantasy adventure by Lucasfilm

Loom is one of the first graphic adventures released by Lucasfilm Games. It was designed by Brian Moriarty and it follows a fantasy theme. There's no inventory and it lacks classic commands like "look", "take", etc. You can play tunes using a combination of notes in order to interact with ...

Cadaver and Cadaver: The Payoff

Cadaver (and the expansion Cadaver: The Payoff) is a blend of adventure and platform game developed by Bitmap Brothers. The gameplay reminds me of the glorious Head over Heels with a few differences: a fantasy setting, an inventory and the fact that you can die... and I died a lot ...

Cruise for a Corpse: crime and mystery on a ship

Cruise for a Corpse is a point and click adventure game developed by Delphine Software, the same guys behind Flashback, Operation Stealth and Future Wars.Cruise for a Corpse borrows heavily from Agatha Christie style and it's entirely set on a single cruise ship. If you like detective stories, go ...

Retro game spotlight: Legend of Kyrandia (1992)

Legend of Kyrandia is the first installment of the series of the same name. Kyrandia is a classic point & click adventure game set in a fantasy world; it was developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin in 1992.There are different versions of the original Legend of Kyrandia. One ...

Developer spotlight: Magnetic Scrolls

Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game company active between 1984 and 1992. It was one of the most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s and developed games such as The Pawn, Fish!, Guild of Thieves.Based In: United Kingdom United Kingdom Founded By: Anita Sinclair, Ken Gordon, Hugh Steers Established ...

1986 in retro gaming: Archon, Karateka, Space Quest

30 years ago, computer gaming was growing slowly. Computers like the C64 and the Spectrum were the main source of digital amusement among Home Computer owners. Finally after a few disappointing years, in 1986 a handful of interesting games began to conquer the PC public:Archon was an hybrid between an ...

Games set in South America

Video games set in South America usually involve Inca or Aztec cultures and mythology. Typical South American settings and cliches are: the jungle, the Amazon, ancient temples, guerrilla warfare, petty dictators, etc.Here's a few of them:Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures  Windows 3.x 1996 LucasArts Flight of the ...

Telarium: early interactive fiction

Telarium was known for interactive fiction adventure games with graphics. Their adventure games were almost all based on novels such as Farenheit 451 and Rendez Vous With Rama. Telarium often cooperated with the authors of those books.Based in: U.S.A. Established in: 1984 Closed in: 1987 gamegenrereleasedAmazonadventure1984Dragon Worldadventure1984Farenheit 451...

Plan 9 From Outer Space: inspired by a B movie

"There was so much potential for a decent game within Plan 9's dire plot and general naffness that the game seems a real cop-out. I'm a real fan of all those awful B-movies, and likes of The Creature From The Black Lagoon and King Kong are just gagging for ...

The Infocom InfoComics

InfoComics was an engine developed by Infocom, used for a series of adventure games that today would be described as visual novels (something like non-interactive comics). InfoComics weren't much popular and, apparently, were one of the causes that lead to Infocom demise. Infocom published four games based on the Infocomics ...

Lure of the Temptress: the first game made with the Virtual Theatre engine

Lure of the Temptress is an DOS fantasy adventure game, developed by Revolution Software, designed by Dave Cummins and published by Virgin Interactive in 1992. It's available for download. Lure of the Temptress was the first game to use the Virtual Theatre engine, also developed by Revolution Software.