abandonware games sorted by rating

PC Pool brings the familiar game of billiards to the computer with a straightforward approach that focuses on physics, positioning, and the eternal question of why that perfectly o...

QBasic 1.1 is Microsoft's approachable programming environment for DOS and one of the easiest ways an entire generation learned that computers could be told exactly what to do. It ...

Racter is one of the more unusual pieces of software from the early home-computer era: an experimental text-generation program designed to produce apparently original prose. Rather...

Rebound is a 1985 DOS game built around simple arcade-style mechanics and quick reactions. Its straightforward design reflects an era when developers could turn a basic physical co...

Sarakon is a 1991 DOS puzzle game centered around manipulating pieces on a board to create matches and clear obstacles. The basic rules are easy to understand, but the real challen...

Shamus is a maze action game developed by William Mataga and published by Synapse Software in 1982. The game became popular on various home computer platforms of the early 1980s. I...

Swap is a puzzle game built around a wonderfully simple idea: rearrange things until the board behaves itself. Released in 1992, it challenges the player with increasingly tricky a...

The Faery Tale Adventure: Book I is a charming action-adventure set in a colorful fantasy world where exploration matters just as much as fighting. You play a young hero sent on a ...

Part interactive thriller, part newsroom simulator, The President is Missing (1988, DOS) casts you as an investigative journalist trying to unravel a political conspiracy before ev...

Tomahawk is an early helicopter flight simulation that puts the player behind the controls of a military aircraft and expects them to take the job rather seriously. Navigation, wea...

TwinBlok, released in 1996, is one of those puzzle games that looks simple at first glance and then quietly consumes your afternoon. It builds on familiar falling-block mechanics b...

Visual Star Trek brings the famous space-faring universe into the world of early computer strategy, replacing cinematic spectacle with text, diagrams, commands, and plenty of imagi...

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition revisits the classic American geography chase with an expanded presentation and the same wonderfully simple premise: find Carmen...

Wreckers is an action-oriented game built around fast movement, hazards and the satisfying business of destroying things before they destroy you. The presentation is unmistakably f...

X-Men: Madness in Murderworld sends Marvel's mutant heroes into the bizarre and dangerous amusement park created by the villain Arcade. Rather than offering a conventional superher...

Xargon is a platformer that feels like it was built with equal parts creativity and cheerful chaos. Levels are packed with secrets, strange enemies, and mechanics that sometimes se...

A Personal Nightmare (1989) blends horror and detective work into one spooky little cocktail of 1980s DOS game design. You return to your hometown to find it overrun by demonic pos...

The ninja ant is back—and this time, he brought a friend. Zool 2 doubles down on the sugar-fueled mayhem of the first game with more levels, more enemies, and even more inexp...

MicroLeague Baseball brings the strategic side of baseball to the computer, allowing players to manage teams, select lineups, and make tactical decisions throughout a game. Rather ...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an open-world action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games in 2002. It's the fourth main entry in the GTA series...

Pac-girl is a 1982 arcade-style maze game that offers another charming variation on one of gaming's most recognizable ideas. The objective is immediately familiar: collect every do...

Aspar GP Master is a 1989 motorcycle racing game that invites you to tear up the track with the same grace and control as a caffeinated squirrel on rollerblades. Loosely inspired b...

Few games from 1994 dared to ask the real question: “What if you gave an axe to someone with absolutely no training and dropped them into a dungeon with the reflexes of a slo...

In Scapeghost (1989), you’re not just dead—you’re also on the clock. As police officer Alan Chance, recently murdered and newly spectral, you’ve got one las...

3-Demon from 1983 is basically Pac-Man with a taste for LSD. You’re in a first-person maze, munching dots while glowing ghosts try to ruin your day. It’s surprisingly c...

If you’ve ever wondered what Bill Gates was doing before becoming a household name, Donkey BAS holds the answer: programming a game about avoiding pixelated donkeys on a high...

Sky Shark is a 1989 DOS conversion of the classic vertically scrolling arcade shooter, putting players behind the controls of a fighter aircraft and filling the screen with enemy p...

Starcross is a 1982 science-fiction text adventure from Infocom that places the player aboard a mysterious spacecraft with an intriguing and potentially dangerous problem to solve....

Ah yes, the game that crawled so Ultima could run. Akalabeth is a wireframe dungeon crawl where you descend into monster-infested labyrinths with the elegance of a lost spreadsheet...

Armaeth: The Lost Kingdom looks like a cousin of Prince of Persia who dropped out of school to study magic mushrooms. You play a vaguely heroic dude exploring a crumbling kingdom f...