Commander Keen: Aliens Ate My Babysitter (1991), the Episode Apogee Kept Hidden
The Keen Episode Most Players Never Saw Most of the original Commander Keen games reached players through Apogee’s shareware model, […]
Games
Free classic DOS game downloads and reviews
Super 3-D Noah’s Ark (1994): The Weirdest Wolfenstein 3D Reskin Ever Made
There’s exactly one commercially sold Wolfenstein 3D-engine game that id Software didn’t publish themselves, and it’s about Noah putting farm
Dreamweb (1994): DOS Gaming’s Darkest Free Adventure
Most adventure games in 1994 wanted you to rescue a princess or solve a light mystery. Dreamweb wanted you to
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985): The Free RPG That Asked You to Be Good, Not Just Win
What if the point of a role-playing game wasn’t to kill the evil wizard, but to become a better person
Shadowcaster (1993): Raven’s Shape-Shifting RPG Before Heretic and Hexen
Long before Raven Software became known for Heretic and Hexen, the studio spent 1993 building something stranger: a first-person RPG
Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare (1994): Epic’s Free Christmas Gift Still Holds Up
Every December, a handful of studios release a throwaway holiday-themed level pack that nobody remembers by January. Epic MegaGames managed
Silverball (1993): DOS Pinball Before Space Cadet Existed
Long before 3D Pinball Space Cadet shipped with Windows and became half a generation’s introduction to virtual pinball, DOS players
Zone 66 (1993): A Free DOS Shooter Built Around One of the Genre’s Best Soundtracks
A Technical Marvel Nobody Talks About Enough Some DOS shooters get remembered for their action, others for their soundtrack. Zone
Vinyl Goddess from Mars (1995): Shareware’s Last Great Platformer Gamble
By 1995, shareware platformers were running out of road — Windows 95 was months away, and the floppy-disk-and-BBS distribution model
Mystic Towers (1994): A Free Wizard-Sim Apogee Almost Forgot
Baron Baldric would really rather be reading. Unfortunately, an aging wizard with a talent for clearing monster-infested towers doesn’t get
Word Rescue (1992): Apogee’s Free Vocabulary Platformer
By 1992, Apogee had built its name distributing run-and-gun shareware platformers. Then the company turned its formula toward classrooms with
Math Rescue (1992): The Free Apogee Platformer That Actually Teaches Arithmetic
Can a game built around solving math problems actually be fun rather than something you tolerate because a teacher assigned