Welcome to Classic DOS Games. This is a very simple web site about a very simple time.

A long time ago, back in the 1980s and early 90s, the best games were for DOS, or a version of Windows that required DOS. Most of the best games were shareware or, more accurately, the first few levels were free and you had to pay for the rest. These were the games my friends and I spent our childhood playing, but lost track of after modern operating systems swept DOS into history.

This website is devoted to DOS and "DOS Windows" (Win16) games. This particular DOS games site is a little more focused than most. Companies and individuals produced thousands of shareware games for DOS and, like movies and books and anything else, a lot of them weren't very good. Most sites aim for quantity. This site is almost exclusively dedicated to games that were distributed commercially, except for a select few games that were extremely good and achieved the same level of quality. Only the best games make it to this site.

This web site is unique. I am attempting to include every version of each listed game. A lot of research has gone into making sure that all of the information on this site is correct. You'll quickly notice that there is no other web site that has all of these files in one place. Classic DOS Games is quite possibly the most complete, and most accurate classic DOS games resource in the world.

The highest ideals of this site are to support the authors by providing links to their web sites and ordering information for the full versions of games that are still sold, and to encourage the authors of classic games to preserve their games for future generations by making them available for sale or as freeware. If you enjoy a shareware game, please consider buying it from the author.

All of the games on this site are freely distributable because they are shareware, freeware, or because the copyright holder has officially and legally released all rights to the public domain (abandonware).

Latest news:

4 July 2008

• It's July 4th, which everyone knows is a special day. It's the day that Classic DOS Games allows you to play DOS games in your browser!!! Classic DOS Games has gotten permission to add a Java-based PC emulator called JPC to the site, and I'm busily making every DOS game on the site playable in your browser. This means that you can play DOS games in any Java-enabled browser, from PCs and Macs to handheld computers, without having to download the game or use an emulator. Happy Fourth of July!
• I'll be adding a page explaining the pros and cons of playing games in JPC very soon. JPC is a very new emulator, so not every game is playable yet. Its primary focus is emulating real mode DOS games that don't require extended memory, like Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons. It only emulates the CPU, not the Sound Blaster, so there's no sound. Only 9 games have been added so far, but I've been up all night setting this up, so I'm going to bed. I'll add another 100 or so when I wake up.

1 July 2008

• Added Hubie.
• Getting serious about preservation. When it comes to disk preservation, I've been all talk and no action. Truthfully, my collection was a mess. But no more! I set up a very wide bookcase and filled four shelves with boxes of DOS games and operating systems, and I've actually started making images of the disks. I started with operating system CD-ROMs, recording BIN/CUE images. A .BIN file is a bit-perfect copy of all of the data on a disc, like an ISO. The .CUE file records the physical details of the disc and how the data was arranged. The same can be done for floppy disks. Now that I've finally gotten organized, I'm looking forward to finally saving these disks from oblivion and turning the DOS Historical Preservation Society into a real organization. I've already had an offer of a donation of a bunch of floppy disks, and I appreciate any original disks or CDs that you can send me.
• We had a few entries to the Video Game Haiku Contest, but we can do better. Coming up with seventeen syllables is not hard. You can write about any game on the site. For example, here is a haiku about Hocus Pocus.
  
  A young wizard's quest
  To save the world from evil
  And become a man

20 June 2008

• Added Cipher for Windows, Googolpede for Windows, Salad Scribble, and Wolfie's Music Games.
• Added a long lost question to the Qbix interview that sort of fell through the cracks.
• The Zork Trilogy Petition is on its way to Activision's corporate headquarters! It took 21 pages to include all of your signatures, which I hope will make an impressive statement about our solidarity. If you haven't signed yet, it's not too late. The URL to the petition was included in my letter, so if there are even more signatures when they check it out, so much the better.

2 June 2008

• I've always believed that anything can be explained in 17 syllables or less, so I thought that it would be nice to summarize the games on the site using haiku. I can't do it by myself, though, so I'm announcing a Video Game Haiku Contest! Contest details are in the forum. You can write about any game on the site. For example, here is a haiku about Boppin'.
  
  A triangle head
  Throws a block at other blocks
  Releasing evil

28 May 2008

• I felt that it was time for Classic DOS Games to provide more information about games than is possible in a short review. I've begun creating "webshrines" for a select few games, with more to come in the future. Webshrines are pages that include everything there is to know about a game: lists of enemies, power-ups and cheat codes, bugs and glitches, complete maps and walkthroughs, and even speedrun videos. The webshrines are here!
• Added drivers for Sound Blaster 16, and updated the Advanced DOSBox Tutorial to include instructions for adding MIDI sound to Windows 3.1.

24 May 2008

• Added Ballistic.
• Classic DOS Games has grown in popularity a lot in 2008. In order to support new features, we've had to upgrade to Business hosting, which costs an extra $6 per month. The upside to this, in addition to the new features, is 25 times more web space and 8 times more bandwidth per month, which should be enough for years to come.
• Recently declassified information has allowed an old friend of mine to publish an article about me. Finally, the embarrassing origin story of DOSGuy can be told. In the spirit of total honesty for which Classic DOS Games is famous, I'm reprinting the bizarre story of my troubled past.

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