probablyfine / a few old favourites

The arcade

I just wanted to play games. For a long time, that was all I wanted a computer for.

These are some of the games I remember from the DOS computer beside my mom, my dad’s Mac in Utah, and the years after. Finding them again brought a lot back. I wanted to share them.

Read how I got here
Pick a game. Nothing runs until you press play.

Choose a game

12 games · DOS / Mac / Windows

DOS

1994

Mystic Towers

Baron Baldric, a tower full of monsters, and puzzles to work out room by room.

Open game
DOS

1994

Hocus Pocus

A little wizard, bright levels, and a lot of lightning bolts.

Open game
DOS

1993

Hand of Fate

The Legend of Kyrandia, Book Two

Zanthia the Alchemist, strange ingredients, and the adventure I played beside my mom.

Open game
Windows

1995

Space Cadet

3D Pinball

The space pinball table. I remembered it while putting this collection together.

Open game
Macintosh

1993

Chrysanthemum

A flower-arranging puzzle game. One of the names that brought the memories straight back.

Open game
Macintosh

1991

Armor

A turn-based tank game I could describe without being able to find it.

Open game
Macintosh

1995

Swoop

The one I remembered as Galaga with insects.

Open game
Macintosh

1989 / 1993 colour edition

TaskMaker

A world that advances one step at a time, with tasks, secrets, and plenty to explore.

Open game
DOS

1994

How Things Work in Busytown

Richard Scarry’s

Richard Scarry’s world, with places to visit and things to take apart and figure out.

Open game
DOS

1993 / 1994 CD edition

Star Wars: X-Wing

Collector’s CD-ROM

I played this one a ton. I remember getting a joystick too.

Open game
Windows

1999

Grand Theft Auto 2

The game behind those late-night demo downloads on Bob’s computer.

Open game
DOS

1997

Grand Theft Auto

An extra from the same era

The original top-down GTA. The late-night demo download in my story was GTA 2; this is its predecessor.

Open game

the discovery

Or open the whole disc.

The search led back to old Mac shareware collections. There’s something about seeing the folders, readmes, and registration notes together. You can explore these discs with a classic Mac desktop.

MacCube Volume 1Arcade games · Chrysanthemum, Armor, Swoop and more
MacCube Volume 2Adventure, card, casino & puzzle · including TaskMaker

More of the story

The Tonka games, The Sims, and StarCraft are part of this history too. They aren’t playable here yet.

The games and their original documentation belong to their creators. The DOS games run with js-dos; the Mac desktop runs a local build of Infinite Mac. The emulators, system disks, games, and shareware CDs are hosted on my own cluster.

For the computer story after this one: How the lab got here. There’s more about me at maxfieldallison.com.

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