Places to download shareware games and demo releases

[MrFlibble]

Cobra Gunship

• v1.2 (05.12.1997): gunship_12.zip
• v1.3.2 (12.05.1998): gunsh132.zip

[MrFlibble]

Downloads from PC World Online's FTP (http://ftp.pcworld.com/pub/games/):

• Alien Trilogy: atrilogy.zip
• Chasm: The Rift (v1.02): chasm.zip
• Chasm: The Rift (v1.32): cdemo.zip
• Destruction Derby 2: dd2idemo.zip
• Ignition: ign_demo.zip
• Revenge of Chang 3-D: changsw.zip

Downloads from Games/Terra

• Apache/Havoc: ahpusa.exe
• Gunship!: GSdemo.exe
• Jane's Combat Simulations: F-15: f15zip2.exe
• John Romero's Daikatana: daikatana_demo.exe
• Micro Machines 2: micro.zip
• Quake 3 (Demo Test): q3DemoTEST.exe
• Seven Kingdoms: 7kdemo.exe
• Su-27 Fanker: su27wn95.exe
• Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness: war2demo.exe
• X-COM: Terran Defense Force: xcomdemo.zip

[MrFlibble]

World Tree Games

• Tyrian 2000: Tyrian 2000 Demo.zip

Because this version of the demo is incomplete, I've assembled a working one by adding missing files from the earlier demo and, by Litude's suggestion, TYRIAN.PIC from the Sound Blaster Live! patch. The archive with all the necessary demo files (plus a text file explaining that this is not an official distribution) is available here.

To replace French text on the sidebar in this version with the original English one, you can use this unofficial fix.

[MrFlibble]

PaybackTime 2

• Shareware version: pt2.zip

The site which housed the free full version of the game (http://rflxn.com/pt2/) is down and not archived by the Wayback Machine, but a working download is found here.

[MrFlibble]

Sami Maaranen

• UnReal World:

Some links that I found via the Wayback Machine are not working (the files were not preserved completely), but several versions were archived intact, and some are available elsewhere:

UnReal World

• v2.04 (15.01.1995): urw204.zip
• v2.051 (28.03.1995): urw2051.zip
• v2.071 (28.06.1995): urw2071.zip
• v2.08 (31.07.1995): urw208.zip
• v2.09 (19.01.1996): urw209.zip
• v2.15 (02.06.1998): urw215.zip
• v2.20 (11.11.1998): urw220.zip
• v2.30BETA (30.04.1999): urw230b.zip
• v2.70 (14.12.2002): urw270.zip
• v2.80 (24.05.2004): urw280.zip

[Litude]

UnReal World

That used to be an absolute blast to play. It had such a nice take on the survival concept and there was tons of stuff to do. Also the fact that the authors are still working on it after all these years is pretty damn awesome.

[MrFlibble]

BTW, v2.04 is freeware. All subsequent versions (apart from the ones released recently after the project moved over to the donationware distribution model) are shareware and limit playing time for each character to 10-15 days of game time.

The very first version 1.00b is actually also freely available from the official website:
http://www.unrealworld.fi/urw_devhist.html

[Litude]

Yeah I specifically remember playing the shareware version and challenging myself to get as much done as possible in the limited time available. Honestly though I'm more surprised by the fact that of popular Finnish freeware/shareware games this one is still around and being updated (even though there were a lot more popular titles around) while other great games have long since bit the dust...

[MrFlibble]

of popular Finnish freeware/shareware games this one is still around and being updated (even though there were a lot more popular titles around)

Speaking of which, is there any comprehensive source that would document Finnish (shareware/freeware) games specifically? I've been running into quite a few games by developers from Finland lately, and would like to learn more

I know there used to be a dedicated site called finnishgames.com, but it is apparently no longer online and the Wayback Machine version seems to not have been archived properly.

[Edit] I figured out how to access game categories at the archived copy of finnishgames.com:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www ... allgames/*

[Litude]

Well there is one website which used to be pretty active and have regular updates, but in the recent years it seems to be slowly dying as well. And it's only available in Finnish. Still I don't think they have removed any entries or articles despite the site being pretty much dead by now. You can access the listing of Finnish DOS games from here. The listing isn't complete, but safe to say all major titles are available.

The numbers after the "Sivut:" text allows you to navigate through the pages and downloads for either a shareware or freeware version will appear once opening a title on the bar to the right (under "Lataa peli"). There are a lot of games though which are more jokes than real games and the ratings aren't always the best to go by. It's pretty awesome that there are reviews for every game up, but with them being in Finnish they are not of much use to you.

[MrFlibble]

Well there is one website which used to be pretty active and have regular updates, but in the recent years it seems to be slowly dying as well. And it's only available in Finnish. Still I don't think they have removed any entries or articles despite the site being pretty much dead by now. You can access the listing of Finnish DOS games from here. The listing isn't complete, but safe to say all major titles are available.

Thanks for the link! I think I came across this one when researching Great Nations.

Or maybe this was another Finnish site, but similarly colourful

BTW, I did not realise that Assault Trooper was a Finnish game.

[MrFlibble]

A potentially interesting repository of demo and shareware games:
http://www.dreamlandbbs.com/index.html

[MrFlibble]

A couple more sites to use as references (Wayback Machine copies):
http://www.happypuppy.com/lordsoth/
http://www.gamedemo.com/all_dos.htm
http://www.gamedemo.com/dir_alldos/
http://jumbo.com/pages/games/g2/
http://activenet.com/links.htm

[MrFlibble]

Webfoot Technologies

• Interpose: wt_ipdt.zip, ipxmas.zip

Two more games from Webfoot Technologies:

• Tronic: trinstal.zip
• TwinBlok: tbinstal.zip

• Chain Reaction: crinstal.zip
• D.R.O.D.: drinstal.zip
• H2O: h2instal.zip
• Hopy-ONE: hoinstal.zip

[MrFlibble]

Alien Cabal

• v1.2 shareware patch (DOS): updsw12.zip
• v1.2 registered patch (DOS): updfv12.zip
• v2.00 registered patch (Win32): Ver200.zip

[Edit] Another Wayback Machine copy of an HTTP downloads site:
http://www.gamesmania.com/english/common/demos/