I’m pretty sure Doom will be the most popular (and my pick too), but I’ll throw a shout-out to Epic Pinball; that Android table was the best one in the game anyway.
It’s a simple choice, really, considering how many hours I managed to invest as a kid:
MY DUDE
Save 5 rounds of cash for a death’s head nuke
Shriek “Now tremble before Thor’s Hammer mortals!” to your friends seated around you
Press fire
Accidentally blow yourself up when the wind pushes it back in your direction 🤡
Spending every lunch hour on the library computer with three friends in 1994 playing this is probably why I didn’t have a girlfriend.
Great game.
Did this exist before or after worms?
Long before
before or after gorilla.bas? i remember there being even old types of this gameplay.
Def after gorilla
My first internet game was a Scorched Earth-inspired game where you’re in space, on planets, with gravity and stuff. I wish I remembered the name of it, it was amazing.
deleted by creator
Hail to the King Baby (Duke Nukem 3d)
I’m getting flashbacks
One Must Fall 2097
You just heard the lightning strike
The theme song is the shit
Kenny Chou! He also composed Zone 66 which is another awesome DOS game soundtrack.
The .mtm master himself.
Cool, I’ll check it out, thanks for the recommendation! I don’t think I ever played Zone 66.
What a banger
Man. I love that game. Still fire it up every so often. That sequel was also an early example of just how terrible a sequel can be. So disappointing.
We got mario kart at home
I loved Whacky Wheels so much but recently put it on my Steamdeck and eh, it did not age well. Very choppy gameplay. But it still has a place in my heart.
What is the name of this game, I played it so much as a kid but I always forget the name
Edit: Wacky Wheels, got it though reverse image search
Probably Rise of the Triad.
Pretty sure I even bought the full game and never ended up getting very far. I also remember spending a little chunk of time on Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom, but could never figure it out enough to progress very far.
Edit: Another one I was trying to recall, the name was H.U.R.L.
Loved the Hugo games. The jungle one was probably my favorite up to the point where I needed to find out some trivia question about the name of some person’s dog before the time of Internet.
I spent more time with Police Quest, which was similar. I remember trying the Hugo Jungle Shareware multiple times and getting frustrated going back-and-forth, stuck.
Commander Keen!
Jumping around with the pogo stick in Keen 6 was so much fun. I recently found the full game. Was surprised how hard that factory level was. But the music was still how I remembered it.
To me, it was Raptor Call of Shadows, a very nice shmup where you could buy new weapons between missions
ITT: everyone had the same “500 games on two CDs!” Shareware compilation CDs that I had growing up.
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours:
Or we are old enough to remember them the first time around vs reruns.
A couple of people have mentioned Raptor: Call of the shadows, which was an absolute favorite of mine. Skyforce Reloaded is pretty close in terms of gameplay. I wish there were more games out there like Raptor
You try Tyrian? It was like raptor but dialed up to 11 with different planes and an actual storyline :o
There’s a pretty good Android port now! Look up OpenTyrian.
Woah didn’t know about the Android port! Def gonna check it out. Thanks!
Scorched Earth
Oh, I just remembered Castle of the Winds, too. What a great era for games!
came here to post this. my buddy had it and i still play it every couple of years.
Castle of the Winds 1 and 2 were incredible!
I got my ass handed to me by Castle of the Winds when I was a kid. And that doofy-ass default barbarian sprite…
We always called that one Castle Of The Windows, since the entire game engine is constructed of 32x32 pixel Windows icons.
Native Windows UI controls for a game. Classic.
it’s like that Indiana Jones Adventure game.
Wow what a throwback. I feel like i was always getting cursed and poisoned. Now i feel the need to find this game and finish it.
Commander Keen is probably the one that I liked the most that is also well known.
My personal favorite was Bass Class, which is weird because I’ve zero interest in real-life fishing, then or now.
So many great titles in the comments. I’ll add a few of mine:
Jill of the Jungle
Zaxxon
Heretic (Doom clone)
Stellar 7 (can’t recall if shareware or if I just shared it)Heretic was more than a Doom clone, it was developed using a modified Doom engine with the participation of Doom developers. It was a clever game in its own right, adding a lot of fresh elements to the then-budding FPS genre.
All great selections!
I was a fan of all of the Apogee platformers:
Commander Keen,
Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure,
Monster Bash
Also Lucasfilm games:
Loom,
Maniac Mansion
What a great time for PC gaming!
I don’t know if it was their SDK or what, but Epic’s sound design in this era was so good. Jill of the Jungle still stands out to me for that.
Sky Roads, Test Drive 2, Jill of the Jungle, Halloween Harry, Jetpack, so many great games that I played the hell out of their shareware versions.
We used to play Sky Roads on the school computers all the time. Great game.
Oh boy I loved Jetpack and Skyroads!
