Many of these games are not as popular as they should have been.
However, I have been playing some for years, and they are often
more fun then the corresponding commercial program. Most of the
following are shareware, but a few are free, like Moria,
my personal all-time favorite (FFVII lasted 30 hours, but I have
been playing Moria for more like 3000). Some have sequences that
would send the most brave warrior of Half-Life into paroxysms
of terror. Most are also very small, and suitable for slower
downloading speeds. Anyway, without further ado, here they are:
Works on Original IBM-PC
Pyromaniac 83 kB.
Well worth your time; cell-auto type physics. Very cool.
Don't expect to last very long on your first few games, though.
The Dungeons of Moria. 238,203 bytes
A truly classic game in the text-only category. All commands are entered
on the keyboard to order your character around the mazes of rooms and
twisty corridors that appear on your terminal as various and sundry
characters. A little hard to learn, but well worth the trouble.
Zork 1. 88,041 bytes
This classic game from Infocom was recently released as freeware by
Activision. It is an adventure game where you type in what you want
your alter-ego to do. "open door" "take keys" "eat fruit," etc.
Has some of the best sequences that I have ever seen in a computer game.
"Go FCD #13 !!"..
Nethack 2.2.1. 221,228 bytes.
I have tried about ten different editions of this free game
(a lot like Moria, but generally more random), and this one was
the most playable. It also loads on
an original IBM-PC (I tested this myself!).. However, Moria does
almost everthing that Nethack does, only better, so I would not advise
playing with this until you are bored with Moria...
The Chat Conversation Engine 391 kB..
Semi-interesting, especially the conversation with Maur. Try this out
if you have a fast connection (do not waste more than 15 minutes down
loading.)
3D Games..
Most of these require at least a 386 running at 20 MHz. (I could run
Wolfenstein 3D on my 12 MHz 286, but I had to make the screensize so
small that I couldn't see anything..) Again, the faster your processor
is, the better. Most of these are somewhat larger also, so you might
want to download them overnight.
Castle Wolfenstein 3D, by ID Software.
836 kB..
This was the first game in a long series of games by ID Software.
Doom, by
ID Software. 2.7 Megabytes
The second in a long line of 3d splattergames. Should be tried by
everyone at least once.
Heretic, by
Raven Software. 2.8 Megabytes
Beats out Doom in almost everything. Uses the same engine to do the
graphics and gameplay, though. Main downfall is the lack of easy multiplayer
support, but Doom didn't have that either..
