Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

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 ...

Bomb Jack: an arcade classic

Bomb Jack is a classic arcade platform game developed and published by Tecmo in 1984. The goal of the game is to collect bombs while avoiding enemies; the whole game takes place in a fixed screen. Bomb Jack for DOS is a conversion from the arcade original version. The arcade and ...

Knight Games: medieval olympics

Olympic games were something back in the 80s and the 90s: Winter Games, Summer Games, California Games, anything-you-can-think-of games. Some imaginative developer thought that the world needed a different kind of "multisport" game and came up with he idea behind Knight Games."What Knight Games lacks is the feeling of ...

Amulets and Armor: a lesser known first-person CRPG

Amulets & Armor is a first-person RPG with a fantasy setting. It was developed and published as shareware for DOS by United Software Artists in 1997. Amulets & Armor became freeware in 2013. Gameplay is mission-based; the player can take up quests in any order and even complete the same quests over ...

Abandonware DOS in 2021: let's say goodbye to a not so great year

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! I must confess that I didn't put a lot of work in implementing new features these last year. I had ...

Play Elite online: the birth of space simulations

The very first Elite was the kind of game that starts a whole genre. Space sims - I'm talking about the trade-fight-explore kind of sims - started with the creation of David Braben and Ian Bell. Games like Freelancer and EVE Online owe Elite a great deal. The Elite series ...

DOS game spotlight: Battle Chess

Chess is a niche genre in video gaming. There were lots of chess simulations: black and white very old games, licensed games from chess champions, etc. No one ever attempted to broaden the audience until Interplay published Battle Chess. I'm a chess fan (I barely remember the rules), but I ...

Hail Caesar! For the second time

Caesar 2 is many things: a simulation set in ancient roman times, a city builder, a wonderful strategy game. Caesar 2 is all of this and more: it's one of the early games developed by Impressions that set the gameplay and quality standards later implemented in old strategy games like Zeus and ...

Retro game spotlight: Fantasy General by SSI

Fantasy General is a hex-based turn-based strategy fantasy wargame set in a D&D world. The player can duel either against a computer or a human opponent or even take part in a longer campaign. There are two sides to chose from, one good and one evil (no neutral!), ...

Jones in the Fast Lane: board game meets life simulation

Jones in the Fast Lane is the kind of game that you don't see often these days. It's a mix between a digital board game and a modern day life simulation. The goal of the game is to live the life of Jones, making choices about school, work, your home, ...

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 ...

Heretic and Hexen: fantasy FPS

Wolfenstein 3D made the FPS genre known to the world, Doom raised the quality bar and the popularity of First Person Shooters. Then came Heretic, a fantasy version of Doom with the addition of an inventory. Heretic was one of the few FPS I actually finished (and loved). I never ...

A classic RPG for Windows: Castle of the Winds

Castle of the Winds is a perfect example of an atypical roguelike (no ASCII, runs in Windows) turned into a liberated game. Surprisingly, Castle of the Winds is still very playable to this day, if you can make it run under recent Windows editions.Genres: RPG, dungeon crawl, roguelike ...

Transport Tycoon: planes, trains, trucks

Transport Tycoon is a business simulation game that puts the player at the head of a transport company to compete against rival companies. The player can build stations, airports, railroads to transport passengers, mail and various goods using trucks, trains and planes. The game became a cult and a few ...

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 ...

SimTower: build your own skyscraper

SimTower is an old Windows 3.x (1994) building and business simulation game where the player is tasked with the management of a skyscraper nonetheless. Raise floors, build apartments, shops, offices and try to avoid bankruptcy if you can.SimTower spawned some similar games for mobile devices, most notably the wonderful Tiny ...

Stunt Car Racer: falling off the track

I'm not a big fan of racing games, this one though catched my attention. I owned the original big box game for C64 and to this day I can't remember why I bought it. Anyway, I found Stunt Car Racer very engaging (and very difficult). The suspended tracks and the ...

A classic brawler: One Must Fall 2097

There was a time when brawlers on PC weren't that common. Not that today it's different, but finding a good brawler "versus" fighting game was really difficult. One Must Fall was one of those games: a perfect blend of everything a brawler needs to be. I finished One Must Fall ...

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation (1992)

I bet not many of you remember Utopia: The Creation of a Nation. It's a single-player strategy game with strong city building elements set in the future. In Utopia your goal is to build and manage a planetary colony in an open-ended gameplay.ACE magazine review "Seems a little daunting ...

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 ...