★ Featured classic
The shareware phenomenon that took over offices, dorms, and the entire PC industry. Episode 1 — Knee-Deep in the Dead — is all here: nine levels of shotgun diplomacy against the hordes of Phobos. This is version 1.9, the final shareware build, exactly as id gave it away.
Hand-picked from the shelf — every one free to play, forever.
NES · 2011 · Puzzle platformer
You and your phantom double move in mirror image. Swap places, dodge enemies, and thread impossible rooms in this elegant puzzle-platformer — an NES remake of a ZX Spectrum gem, ported with the original author's blessing.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now
Game Boy · 2018 · Arcade
A woolly little climbing game: bounce from sheep to sheep, higher and higher, and whatever you do, don't look down. This is the 'Free ROM' edition of the Game Boy homebrew hit — the author literally tells you to pass it around.
Free ROM — author invites distribution
▶ Play now
DOS · 1995 · Vertical shooter
The vertical shooter that set the bar on DOS: a full campaign, hundreds of weapon combinations, a shop between levels, and a soundtrack people still hum. This is the complete version 2.1 — author Jason Emery set the full game free.
Freeware — full version, freed by its author
▶ Play now57 classics, each one public domain, freeware, shareware, or homebrew — with its source and license on the play page.
DOS · 1993 · First-person shooter
The shareware phenomenon that took over offices, dorms, and the entire PC industry. Episode 1 — Knee-Deep in the Dead — is all here: nine levels of shotgun diplomacy against the hordes of Phobos. This is version 1.9, the final shareware build, exactly as id gave it away.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
NES · 2010 · Shoot 'em up
A two-minute score-attack shoot-'em-up built to squeeze the NES dry — huge sprites, screen-filling explosions, and a ticking clock. A love letter to the classic Caravan shooters: no levels to finish, just two minutes to prove yourself.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now NES · 2011 · Puzzle platformer
You and your phantom double move in mirror image. Swap places, dodge enemies, and thread impossible rooms in this elegant puzzle-platformer — an NES remake of a ZX Spectrum gem, ported with the original author's blessing.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now Game Boy · 2018 · Arcade
A woolly little climbing game: bounce from sheep to sheep, higher and higher, and whatever you do, don't look down. This is the 'Free ROM' edition of the Game Boy homebrew hit — the author literally tells you to pass it around.
Free ROM — author invites distribution
▶ Play now
Game Boy Advance · 2010 · Puzzle
A puzzle game with shoot-'em-up DNA: match, chain, and blast your way through a hand-drawn underworld. One of the GBA homebrew scene's most polished puzzlers — easy to start, devilish to master.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now
Sega Genesis · 2018 · Bullet-hell shooter
A Genesis bullet-hell shooter that has no business running this smoothly on 1989 hardware — dense patterns, big bosses, and a pounding pace. Homebrew from 2018, vintage where it counts.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now DOS · 1995 · Vertical shooter
The vertical shooter that set the bar on DOS: a full campaign, hundreds of weapon combinations, a shop between levels, and a soundtrack people still hum. This is the complete version 2.1 — author Jason Emery set the full game free.
Freeware — full version, freed by its author
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Fighting
Giant robots, a future where corporations settle their scores in the arena, and one of the finest one-on-one fighters the PC ever produced. Declared freeware by its makers in 1999 — the full game, every robot, every arena.
Freeware — full version (1999)
▶ Play now
DOS · 1990 · Platformer
Billy Blaze — eight years old, genius, owner of a spaceship built from soup cans — defends Earth before bedtime. Episode 1 of Invasion of the Vorticons: the shareware episode that launched id Software, shared exactly as Apogee intended.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Role-playing
Where Tamriel began: a vast first-person RPG spanning a continent, built around the quest to reassemble the Staff of Chaos. Bethesda released the complete game as freeware for the series' tenth anniversary — this is that full release.
Freeware — Bethesda's anniversary release
▶ Play now
DOS · 1992 · Platformer
Epic's answer to the console platformer, built for the PC: swing vines, morph into animals, and fight through the jungle. Episode 1 was the shareware hook that sold a generation on PC gaming.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1992 · First-person shooter
The grandfather of the first-person shooter. Escape from Castle Wolfenstein across the full ten-level first episode, rendered in id's revolutionary raycast engine. Shareware version 1.4 — the episode that started a genre.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1991 · Platformer
Before the sunglasses and the one-liners, Duke was a pink-shirted hero battling Dr. Proton through the techno-lairs of Shrapnel City. The original shareware episode — Apogee's platform hit that made Duke a household name.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · Platformer
Bigger, louder, and meaner: Duke battles the Rigelatins across alien worlds with a flamethrower, laser cannon, and his bare fists. The shareware episode of Apogee's VGA showcase sequel.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1991 · Platformer
Goodbye, Galaxy! — Billy Blaze rockets to the planet Gnosticus IV to rescue the Oracles and learn the secret of the Shikadi. The Keen 4 shareware episode: id Software's smoothest scrolling yet, and a complete adventure in its own right.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Run-and-gun platformer
Epic's supersonic answer to a certain hedgehog: a green rabbit with a big gun, blasting through the turtle empire at speeds the PC wasn't supposed to manage. The free shareware episode — Turtle Village and beyond.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Platformer
A young wizard's apprentice hops through jewel-box castles, solving switch puzzles and zapping goblins on his quest to join the Council of Wizards. The shareware episode of Apogee's prettiest platformer.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1992 · Platformer
Little Cosmo's birthday trip to Disney World goes sideways when his parents vanish on a strange planet. Suction-cup hands, hidden bonuses everywhere, and Apogee charm to spare — the full first episode, free as shareware.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Kart racing
Hedgehog-launching, bomb-dropping zoo-animal kart chaos — on the PC, the same year the consoles thought they owned the genre. The shareware edition packs a full cup of tracks and the infamous Wacky Shoot-Out.
Shareware edition — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Vertical shooter
The DOS shooter's shooter: earn cash blowing up MegaCorps' air force, then spend it on bigger guns between sorties. This shareware edition includes the complete Bravo Sector — and its bundled VENDOR.DOC begs you to pass it around.
Shareware — distribution encouraged by its VENDOR.DOC
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · Platformer
Archaeologist Malvineous Havershim, a mysterious ruin, and a talking eagle statue: Epic's sprawling answer to the Apogee platformers, with a world map and secrets in every wall. The complete trilogy — author Allen Pilgrim set the full game free in 2008.
Freeware — full version, freed by its author (2008)
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · Run-and-gun platformer
CIA operative Snake Logan parachutes into a mutant-overrun Metro City in Apogee's hardest-hitting platformer — built on the Keen engine, tuned for combat. All three episodes: Apogee released the complete game as freeware.
Freeware — full version, freed by Apogee
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · Vertical shooter
Earth's last hero flies three full campaigns against the Kretons in Apogee's EGA-defying vertical shooter — rescued POWs, triple lasers, and screen-filling bosses. The bundled release notes say it plainly: Apogee re-released it as freeware in March 2006.
Freeware — full version (Apogee, 2006)
▶ Play now
NES · 2012 · Action platformer
Throw a streamer, climb your own ribbon, and scale Master Y's floating fortress one impossible screen at a time. The NES port of the Flash cult hit — precision platforming where your grappling hook is made of party supplies.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now
NES · 2018 · Platformer
Your best friend has been kidnapped and taken to the top of the Mega Mountain. A compact, heartfelt NES platformer about the climb — one screen at a time, all the way to the summit.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now
Super Nintendo · 2008 · Party brawler
A deathmatch minigame built for the crowd the SNES could actually gather: plug in two multitaps, hand out eight controllers, and kick your friends off the arena. A legendary piece of SNES homebrew — small, loud, and endlessly replayable.
Free homebrew · via PDRoms
▶ Play now
DOS · 1996 · Role-playing
The Elder Scrolls at its most sprawling: a first-person RPG across the kingdoms of High Rock and Hammerfell, with a landmass the size of Great Britain, hundreds of dungeons to delve, and a main quest of courtly intrigue undertaken for the Emperor himself. Bethesda released the complete game as freeware for the series' fifteenth anniversary — this is that full release, patched to the final official build.
Freeware — Bethesda's anniversary release
▶ Play now
DOS · 1995 · Adventure
A wisecracking Indiana Jones-style romp through the Amazon: pilot-for-hire Joe King (yes, Joe King) crash-lands in the jungle with a movie starlet, a mad scientist's dinosaur plot, and a tribe of Amazons between him and a paycheck. The full CD talkie version — every line voiced — exactly as its creators gave it away. Point, click, and mind the puns.
Freeware — released by its creators
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Adventure
A dystopian point-and-click thriller with art by Dave Gibbons (Watchmen): Robert Foster, raised in the outback wasteland, is dragged into a towering arcology city where the rich live below ground and a computer called LINC watches everything. The full CD talkie version, with every line voiced — the adventure Revolution Software set free, and one of the best the genre ever produced.
Freeware — Revolution Software's release
▶ Play now
Windows · 2008 · Adventure
The Broken Sword chapter the fans made: George Stobbart rushes back to Paris on word that Nico Collard is dead — only to find her alive, distant, and tangled in a Neo-Templar assassination plot. Built over eight years by the fan team mindFactory, endorsed by Revolution Software itself, and slotted between The Smoking Mirror and The Sleeping Dragon, it plays like the 2D sequel the series never got — hand-drawn Paris, an orchestral score, and full speech in English and German.
Freeware — mindFactory, endorsed by Revolution
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · First-person shooter
Ken Silverman's one-man answer to Wolfenstein 3D — the whole registered game: three episodes of maze-running, monster-blasting FPS action with destructible walls, slot machines, and a sense of humor, years before he built Duke Nukem 3D's engine.
Freeware — Ken Silverman's 1999 release
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · First-person shooter
DOOM's dark-fantasy sibling: Raven took id's engine and conjured a world of crossbows, gauntlets, and undead golems. This is the shareware release — the full first episode, City of the Damned — exactly as it spread across 1994's BBSes.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · Platformer
Earth's animals are being turned into murderous mutants, and Harry — jetpack, flamethrower, and a truly irresponsible arsenal — is the rescue plan. The complete game, all four episodes, in Apogee's own freeware release.
Freeware — Apogee's 2007 release
▶ Play now
DOS · 1991 · Platformer
Mylo Steamwitz, fortune-hunting miner, drops into the Twibbles' crystal mines: sixteen levels of gems, gravity flips, and air-pocket platforming. Episode 1 — 'Troubles with Twibbles' — the shareware classic that helped invent the episodic PC platformer.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · Platformer
Count Chuck has dognapped every pet in town, and Johnny Dash — pajamas, slingshot, unlimited courage — is going in after them. Episode 1 of Apogee's Halloween platformer: graveyards, zombies, and some of the smoothest EGA animation on the PC.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1992 · Platformer
Agent 006 — Sam to his friends — parachutes onto a island fortress to steal back the Red Rock Rover's blueprints: sixteen missions of keycards, laser grids, and henchmen. Episode 1 of Apogee's spy-platformer trilogy, from the Crystal Caves engine team.
Shareware episode — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1990 · Platformer
Nevada Smith rappels into a booby-trapped pyramid for four episodes of spear-throwing, trap-dodging, single-screen platform archaeology — Apogee's very first published game series, complete in its freeware release. Pick your episode from the menu.
Freeware — Apogee's 2009 release
▶ Play now
DOS · 1991 · Platformer
Nevada Smith heads north: four episodes of ice-cavern treasure hunting from the Pharaoh's Tomb engine — penguins, pickaxes, and one-screen puzzle-platforming at its most unforgiving. The complete freeware release; pick your episode from the menu.
Freeware — Apogee's 2009 release
▶ Play now
DOS · 1995 · First-person shooter
Heretic's darker, stranger sequel: three character classes, hub worlds that remember what you did in them, and a serpent rider to hunt across them. This is the official four-level demo id Software gave away in 1995 — the whole first hub, free then and free now.
Official demo — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1997 · First-person shooter
Lo Wang's turn with the Build engine: sticky bombs, a katana, dual Uzis, and the filthiest one-liners of 1997. The complete shareware episode — the same four levels that sold a million registered copies by word of mouth.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1994 · First-person shooter
Tom Hall's gloriously unhinged shooter: five playable operatives, god modes and dog modes, and enough gibs to earn its own 'ludicrous gibs' splash screen. The full shareware episode, The Hunt Begins, exactly as Apogee shipped it.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · First-person shooter
Before DOOM, there was Blake: a Wolfenstein-engine sci-fi shooter aboard a space station full of mutants, informants, and vending machines that heal you. Episode 1, the complete shareware release — floor by floor of 1993's other FPS.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1995 · Platformer
A sword-and-sorcery platformer with a trick nobody else was doing: swap between the warrior Endrick and the sorceress Elandra mid-jump, each with their own weapons and spells. The complete shareware episode from Apogee's platformer shelf.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1996 · First-person shooter / RPG
The DOOM-engine game that asked 'what if the shooter had a story?': voiced NPCs, a rebel front, choices with consequences, and a plague-ridden city to fight through. The official 1996 demo — the opening chapter of the FPS/RPG hybrid that was years ahead of its time.
Official demo — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1996 · Shoot 'em up
Apogee's last game and its most explosive shooter: fully rendered enemies, triple-parallax scrolling, and a shop full of engines and cannons between missions. This is the shareware version 1.1 — the first mission set, exactly as it spread in 1996.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1995 · Fighting
Apogee's answer to Mortal Kombat: digitised alien brawlers, arena combat, and a storyline written like a pay-per-view poster. The complete game, released as freeware by Apogee in 2006 — the DOS shelf's fighting game, at last.
Freeware — Apogee's 2006 release
▶ Play now
DOS · 1991 · Puzzle adventure
Keith Schuler's Aztec puzzle-adventure: push boulders, dodge snakes and spiders, and think three rooms ahead in the temple of the sun god. Episode 1, Romancing the Rose — the complete shareware release, file-for-file as its VENDOR.DOC specifies.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1992 · Educational platformer
The Gruzzles have stolen all the words, and an Apogee platformer is how 1992 got them back: match words to pictures, bounce on gruzzles, and learn to read without noticing. Part 1, the complete shareware release — the catalogue's first game for young readers.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1993 · Platformer
A Lode Runner-style treasure hunt with a jetpack, a phase shifter, and 400 levels between the one-man original and this final version. Author Adam Pedersen made Jetpack freeware — this is v1.5, the complete final release, level editor's hoard and all.
Freeware — released by its author
▶ Play now
DOS · 1996 · Run-and-gun platformer
The mouse-aim run-and-gun that rewired what a platform shooter could be: you move with the keyboard and aim with the mouse, alone in a prison colony where the inmates have become something else. The shareware version — the levels Crack dot Com gave away, whose code and assets they later set free.
Shareware — public-domain assets
▶ Play now
DOS · 1987 · Roguelike
The deepest game ever made, one ASCII character at a time: descend through procedurally generated dungeons, a hundred monsters and a thousand ways to die ('Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 zorkmids.'). This is the DOS build of NetHack 3.7 — the DevTeam's free software, still growing nearly forty years on.
Free software — NetHack GPL
▶ Play now
DOS · 1996 · First-person shooter
The most famous advergame ever made: a DOOM-engine shooter given away in cereal boxes, where you 'zorch' Flemoids back to their own dimension instead of shooting anything. Both free episodes — Chex Quest (1996) and Chex Quest 2 (1997) — in one bundle; pick from the menu. (The intro movies stay behind to keep the download small.)
Freeware — the cereal-box giveaway
▶ Play now
DOS · 1996 · First-person shooter
Hail to the king: the shareware episode that sold the Build engine and made Duke a legend — L.A. Meltdown, from the rooftop to the stadium, shrink rays and pipe bombs included. The complete, unmodified file set from the official shareware CD.
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
DOS · 1997 · First-person shooter
The fourth Build-engine pillar, and the bloodiest: Caleb, betrayed by the god he served, comes back from the grave with a pitchfork and a grudge. The complete retail shareware episode, installed from the original 1997 shareware CD — flare guns, voodoo dolls, and 'I live... again!'
Shareware — free to share
▶ Play now
NES · 2011 · Platformer
A modern NES platformer with a ridiculous verb at its heart: punch bats, ride the recoil, and bounce through Captain Roache's planet one explosion-propelled leap at a time. The free demo by Julius Riecke — the Micro Mages team, showing off years before Micro Mages.
Free homebrew demo
▶ Play now
Atari 2600 · 1998 · Shoot 'em up
One of the foundational Atari 2600 homebrews: shoot the space oysters, collect the pearls they leave, and don't touch the walls. Piero Cavina wrote it in 1997–98 to prove the 2600 scene was alive — in 4KB, it still is.
Free homebrew
▶ Play now
DOS · 1992 · Adventure
Revolution Software's first adventure: Diermot the turnip farmer escapes a dungeon and walks into a rebellion against the Skorl, in a town where the NPCs live their own lives whether you're watching or not. The Virtual Theatre engine's debut — the freeware release Revolution gave away, running on ScummVM.
Freeware — Revolution Software's release
▶ Play nowNothing on that shelf — try a different search or system.
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