abandonware games sorted by popularity

Bright colors, imaginative worlds, and wonderfully smooth animation make Magic Pockets an overlooked platforming gem from the early 1990s. You guide a quirky hero armed with magica...

By 1992, The Magic Candle 3 refined everything the series had built — a deep fantasy world, intricate character management, and enough side quests to last you until retiremen...

Imagine being a bouncing ball in a series of floating sky islands full of monsters, traps, and puzzles. Welcome to Cloud Kingdoms, where the laws of physics politely take a backsea...

A text adventure with just enough graphics to remind you what year it is, The Pawn (1986, DOS) wraps you in a fantasy world where the puzzles are clever and the parser occasionally...

Doofus (1994) is what happens when platformers go slightly off the rails. You guide a floppy-haired kid through surreal, cartoony landscapes filled with hazards that feel more anno...

UMS: The Universal Military Simulator is exactly what its name promises and maybe a little more than you bargained for. Released in 1988, it offers a sandbox approach to warfare th...

Spirit of Adventure is a 1991 fantasy role-playing game that sends a party of adventurers into a world filled with monsters, magic, exploration, and the usual assortment of people ...

Building on its predecessor, Labyrinth of Worlds expands the formula by throwing you across multiple dimensions. Each world has its own flavor—icy wastelands, alien landscape...

Space Quest 2: Vohaul’s Revenge continues Roger Wilco’s improbable rise from janitor to cosmic trouble magnet. This 1987 sequel ups the stakes by kidnapping Roger and t...

The Dig is a thoughtful science-fiction adventure from LucasArts that sends a small group of explorers to an alien world after a mysterious object is discovered near Earth. What be...

In Command Adventures: Starship (1995, DOS), you’re the captain, the admiral, and occasionally the guy who has to fix the hyperdrive when it’s on fire. This obscure gem...

Hollywood Hijinx feels like stepping into a puzzle-filled mansion where logic occasionally takes a coffee break. Released in 1986, this text adventure blends humor with brain-teasi...

Thomas the Tank Engine 2 continues the computer adventures of the famous blue locomotive with another collection of simple activities designed around the world of the television se...

A Line in the Sand (1992) is what happens when a board game about modern Middle Eastern warfare gets turned into a DOS strategy title with all the subtlety of a cold war memo. You ...

The Gene Machine is a quirky point-and-click adventure with a colorful comic-book style, a bizarre cast, and a story that happily wanders into territory where ordinary logic should...

This one's not for the faint of heart. Conflict in Vietnam tries to simulate the complexity and chaos of guerrilla warfare in a game where every click can cost lives. The graphics ...

Crazy Cars 2 upgrades the formula with a plot about crooked cops and stolen Ferraris. You’ll speed across vast American highways, dodging patrol cars that spawn with supernat...

Manhunter 2: San Francisco continues the unsettling science fiction saga with another blend of investigation, puzzle solving, and dark storytelling. Once again humanity struggles b...

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side pane...

Released in 1994, Lollypop stars an energetic young heroine armed with candy-themed determination as she jumps through vibrant platforming stages packed with enemies and hidden sec...

Sherlock Holmes: Another Bow is a 1985 DOS adventure featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective in a mystery that requires observation, deduction, and a willingness to investi...

D-Day: The Beginning of the End is not your average “storm the beach” simulator—it’s a grand strategy title that drops you into the nerve-wracking planning ...

Ms Pac PC offers a faithful computer interpretation of the classic maze-chasing formula, putting players in control of a determined yellow heroine who has no intention of allowing ...

Empire Earth asks a bold question: what if we took all of human history and turned it into one very long real-time strategy match? From cavemen to mech-wielding future armies, this...

By the time Ultima 9 rolled around, expectations were sky-high—and the result was… divisive. It looked gorgeous for 1999, with sweeping 3D landscapes and dramatic voic...

Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan adapts the tabletop fantasy role-playing system into a substantial computer adventure filled with exploration, combat, character development, ...

Castles 2 took everything the first game did and cranked it up with actual diplomacy, espionage, and conquest mechanics. Now you’re not just stacking bricks—you’r...

Sports management usually involves tactics, budgets, and serious planning. M.U.D.S. - Mean Ugly Dirty Sport decides those are merely optional suggestions. This delightfully outrage...

If you’ve ever thought The Lord of the Rings needed more ASCII and fewer hobbit feelings, Angband is your jam. Since 1992, this dungeon-crawling roguelike has been throwing p...

If you ever wanted to explore endless, procedurally generated tunnels filled with monsters, traps, and the occasional existential crisis, Dungeon Crawl is your kind of misery. Rele...