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Last active July 30, 2025 07:35
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A slice of (retro) PC gaming

A bunch of classic and memorable (old) PC games. Some are very well known, other are more niche hidden games. They are all worth revisiting.

Here's the list, in no particular order. Mostly because this is a dump of a brainstorm of a list of PC games. I spend hours thinking about them, so I'd rather take note.

  • Alley Cat (1983-1984, DOS, 1 player)
    • Wikipedia, MobyGames, Lutris
    • Very old game, back when video cards could only display four simultaneous colors on the screen.
  • Jump 'n Bump (1998, DOS, 4 players)
  • SkyRoads (1993, DOS, 1 player)
  • Wacky Wheels (1994, DOS, 2 players)
    • Wikipedia, MobyGames, Lutris
    • SNES gamers had Mario Kart. DOS gamers had Wacky Wheels.
    • Not to be confused with the terrible Wacky Wheels HD that was recently released.
  • Lemmings (1991, many systems)
    • Wikipedia, MobyGames, Lutris
    • Better played with a mouse.
    • The Windows version has a level select dialog (instead of a password) and includes the levels from the first two games.
    • The Amiga version supports 2-player split-screen using two mice simultaneously.
  • Tyrian (1995-1999, DOS and Windows, 2 players)
  • Liero (1998, DOS, 2 players)
  • Glider (1988, 1991, 1994; Mac OS Classic and Windows, 1 player)
  • 3D Pinball: Space Cadet (1995, Windows)
  • TetriNET (1997, Windows, 1 local player, 6 network players)
    • Wikipedia, MobyGames, Lutris
    • Before Tetris 99, we had TetriNET. Clear lines to send extra lines to your opponents. Collect items and use them either on yourself, or on an opponent.
    • There was also a variant called TetriFAST that didn't have the delay after placing a block.
  • Hover! (1995, Windows, 1 player)
    • Wikipedia, MobyGames, Lutris
    • Microsoft included this 3D game hovercraft game in the Windows 95 installation CD-ROM. It's simple, but nostalgic to many.
  • HoverRace (1996, Windows)
    • Wikipedia, MobyGames, Lutris, Steam, GitHub
    • Simple shareware hovercraft racing game. It was recently re-released on Steam, and the source-code is available. I think the original version only had 1 local player, but the recent version has 4 local players. Both versions had network multiplayer.

Desktop games. Well, games you probably play alongside your Office documents.

Other obvious games:

  • Prince of Persia (ported to many systems) and Prince of Persia 2
  • id Software
    • Commander Keen
    • Wolfenstein 3D (and Spear of Destiny, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein) (and games from other companies, such as Super Noah's Ark 3-D, Rise of the Triad)
    • Doom and Doom II (and The Ultimate Doom, and Final Doom)
    • Heretic and Hexen
    • Quake (and Quake II, and Quake III)

Other huge lists of games:

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