Abandonware DOS title

Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly Game of the Year awards

    Electronic Gaming Monthly Game of the Year awards

    22nd August 2020top games and awards
    Electronic Gaming Monthly is a video game magazine founded in 1988 (a long time ago!). Amazingly, it's still alive and well, in digital form. Each year, the editors of Electronic Gaming Monthly chose a Game of the Year among games realeased for almost every system.Double Dragon 1988for Arcade, NES, SMSGhouls ...
  • What is your favourite dungeon crawler?

    What is your favourite dungeon crawler?

    31st July 2020RPG
    Dungeon crawlers are RPGs in which the player has to explore one or more dungeons (or similar non-open world environments), fight hordes of cunning monsters, looting treasure, gain experience and levels and so on. Usually, dungeon crawlers have simple storylines and a linear progression. A lot of rogue-likes can be ...
  • Play classic action games online

    Play classic action games online

    20th June 2020play online
    Action games are perhaps the best to be played online in quick sessions. No waiting turns, no strategic planning, just quick reflexes and plain fun. These are just some of the action games available on Abandonware DOS to download or to play directly in your browser. Castlevania Castlevania was such ...
  • GOG Dungeon and Dragons sale

    GOG Dungeon and Dragons sale

    18th June 2020deals and free games
    Good Old Games is hosting an interesting sale: the Dungeon & Dragons sale. Games based on the most popular pen & paper RPG ever designed are discounted, up to -75%. And there's a giveaway too: get Eye of the Beholder I, II and III for free, for a limited time!...
  • Remake of the month: OpenTTD

    Remake of the month: OpenTTD

    12th June 2020remakes and sequels
    OpenTTD, as the name suggests, is an open source remake of Transport Tycoon, a simulation designed by Chris Sawyer.Transport Tycoon was 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 ...
  • Graphic adventures with a text parser

    Graphic adventures with a text parser

    5th June 2020adventure
    There's a fine line between a "text adventure" (also called interactive fiction) and a modern graphic adventure. Before the advent of point & click adventure games such as Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight or Day of the Tentacle, designers first attempted to create graphical adventure games with a text-based interface. You ...
  • Abandoned games set in the 19th century

    Abandoned games set in the 19th century

    2nd May 2020adventure, RPG, simulation
    The 19th century was the age of steam, railroads and remarkable discoveries. It was the age of literary masterpieces like the Sherlock Holmes novels, Dracula and Jules Verne's sci-fi stories.Some of the most popular games set in the 19th centurey are:The Oregon TrailThe Lost Files of Sherlock HolmesMartian ...
  • Al Lowe: the father of Larry Laffer

    Al Lowe: the father of Larry Laffer

    25th April 2020adventure
    Al Lowe is an American video game designer, programmer, and musician who developed several adventure games, mostly for Sierra On-Line. He is best known for creating the Leisure Suit Larry series.Name: Al Lowe Born on: 24/07/1946Occupation: video game designer, game programmer, musicianKnown for: Leisure Suit LarryWiki page: http://en....
  • 2000 games and applications

    2000 games and applications

    23rd April 2020Abandonware DOS updates
    After a quite a few years, Abandonware DOS reached the 2000 games (and applications) milestone. I personally played each game to ensure it worked, took screenshots, wrote info and added everything to the Abandonware DOS database. The trick was to come up with a method to do this in the least ...
  • What were your favourite shoot'em ups?

    What were your favourite shoot'em ups?

    4th April 2020shooter
    Shoot 'em ups were extremely popular in the '80s and '90s, even among PC owners.In a shoot 'em up, players control some sort of vehicle (or an aircraft) with the only goal of destroying the largest number of enemies while dodging their bullets as long as they ...
  • The worst games based on movies

    The worst games based on movies

    28th March 2020action
    Movies have always been a source of inspiration for video games. Almost every successful movie has its video game (and sometimes even unsucessful ones). The results in the gaming world weren't always so good. I remember lots and lots of mediocre games that tried to patch together different moments of ...
  • GOG Spring Sale Classics

    GOG Spring Sale Classics

    24th March 2020deals and free games
    It's spring time and everyone in the world is waiting for this COVID-19 hell to fade and become a thing of the past (me included, sheltered in my home in northern Italy).For all of us trying to come up with new ways to fill this free time, Good Old ...
  • Puzzle games based on TV game shows

    Puzzle games based on TV game shows

    21st March 2020puzzle
    Games based on TV game shows were popular in the early days of DOS video gaming on older PCs. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that every major game show of the eighties was translated into a video game: Family Feud, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and more.Here's ...
  • What does COVID have to do with Abandonware DOS?

    What does COVID have to do with Abandonware DOS?

    16th March 2020Abandonware DOS updates
    As you probably know, Abandonware DOS is run by one person only: here I am. I'm Italian and - lucky me! - I live in Lombardy, the Italian region where the Coronavirus is most present: almost 15000 cases so far, and rising.It's like living under curfew. I can go out ...
  • Games set during the cold war period

    Games set during the cold war period

    14th March 2020simulation, strategy
    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: merchants, managers, CEOs

    7th March 2020simulation
    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

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

    29th February 2020top games and awards
    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

    Commander Keen: side-scrolling platformers

    22nd February 2020action
    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: an Elite game designer

    8th February 2020simulation
    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

    Old school forgotten RPGs from the past

    1st February 2020RPG
    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 ...
  • The best abandonware games of 2019

    The best abandonware games of 2019

    4th January 2020top games and awards
    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

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

    1st January 2020Abandonware DOS updates
    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

    Old school: first-person party-based CRPGs

    28th December 2019RPG
    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 (AKA Barbarian): the art of fighting slowly

    21st December 2019action
    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 ...
  • Simulation games: Team Yankee, Hill Street Blues, Epic and more

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

    13th December 2019simulation
    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 ...
  • A niche genre: Metroidvania

    A niche genre: Metroidvania

    23rd November 2019action, adventure
    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' in vector graphics

    16th November 2019racing
    "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

    Windows 3.1 classic games

    8th November 2019top games and awards
    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 ...
  • Minesweeping at the office

    Minesweeping at the office

    29th September 2019puzzle
    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 ...
  • From the arcades: coin-operated conversions

    From the arcades: coin-operated conversions

    24th September 2019action
    There was a time when coin-operated games were constantly being converted for home systems. Now coin-ops are really difficult to find and everyone prefer playing from home, online or offline, without the hassle of driving/walking to an arcade and lose coin after coin into those hellish money-eating machines. I ...