Developer: Infocom
Release Date: 1988

In the annals of classic and retro gaming, Infocom's rise and fall is one of the most documented and well followed, with books and documentaries on the subject. Their downfall was due to a number of factors, including an ill advised attempt to break into the database market, but also because by design the nature of their text-based Interactive Fiction games became dated once computers got better at graphics.

Zork Zero was their attempt to bridge the gap. It's also one of their last games. It's also a prequel to the other games, and until recently Splatterlight didn't support it. Custom support was rolled into the latest version so now it's easy to experience the game so fire it up and imagine an alternate universe where it was successful Infocom went on for decades.

  Buy Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz on GOG.com

Developer: Midway Games
Release Date: November 16, 1995

In hindsight, one of the ironies of DOOM, famous today for running on everything, is that the consoles of the era couldn't run it well, usually in the form of the game having to make compromises on quality or content in order to work. The version for the origina PlayStation was no different, though at the time it was the best attempt yet.

Williams Entertainment (now Midway Games) did a good job making it run on Sony's console, and for bonus points it incorporated a custom campaign featuring levels from both DOOM and DOOM II.

Similar to the BurgerDoom project, PsyDoom is not an attempt to simulate the PSX version, it actually uses the disc image for the PSX version of the game. You can choose to either run the PSX version of the levels with modern quality of life improvements or you can have it recreate the experience of running in a period-accurate resolution and framerate.

Developer: Joeveno
Release Date: September 17, 2025
Source Code Release Date: September 17, 2025

No, that's not a caps lock error, that's the name of the game. Just go with me on this one...

BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3 is a first-person shooter where you play as a drug dealer who attempted to perform a demonic ritual to resurrect your favorite deceased singer but accidentally opened a portal to Hell. And then it gets weird.

The game straddles the line between sincere homage to (or parody of) Brazilian mods and bootleg games, and a sincere attempt at indie game development. The result has been as an incredible fever dream you should play by Kotaku which both looks clearly made by newcomers and yet at the same time is way more competent and well crafted than you might expect. It not only feels like Quake, it uses the Quake engine (specifically building off of the QSS-M source port), an exanple of using open source to make new work.

It's like the game equivalent of an underground mixtape or an indie movie, where it has an overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam because the target audience takes one look and thinks it's awesome.

The game is available on Steam, itch.io and, in what I have to think is a reaction to the recent Sony shenanigans, physical media.

Developer: Raven Software
Release Date: November 24, 1998

First there was Heretic, then there was Hexen, then there was Hexen II, and finally... Heretic II.

Continuing the trend of oddly named game sequels, Heretic II is the only one of the four not to later go open source, but someone was able to finagle a source port of it anyway, fusing the Quake II engine with the game code for Heretic II (similar to what Xash is doing). After some further efforts to make it build cross-platform we are able to offer a Universal 2 build here.

Developer: Team Hoi
Release Date: October 4, 1997

In Team Hoi's final side scroller, Moon Child is probably the most Amiga game to never be released on the Amiga, jumping instead to Windows 95. You play as a green elf sent from the moon to protect the planet Utopia. Why? Look, it was the 90's, these things happened.

With trippy visuals, cool mechanics like jetpacks, and a theme song that honestly kinda slaps, it's worth checking out. I was alerted to the existence of this game from one of the original game's authors which I thought was pretty cool.

It's Moon Child...

Developer: Quetoo Team
Release Date: May 22, 2026

So this is interesting, I just stumbled on this randomly a few weeks back right after it was released, although it was apparently in the works for twenty years.

Quetoo is an open source project that's a combination of id Tech engines and technologies, incorporating every graphics technique the source port communities are known for, and recreating some of the classic maps of the Quake series without actually using any of its data.

The result is a purely community focused freeware arena shooter that can even be edited with modern tools like Trenchboom.
Definitely one to keep an eye on.

Developer: Team Hoi
Release Date: 1994

Also an Amiga game from Team Hoi, Clockwiser at first appears to be a standard issue match-3 game, but the twist is not something I've seen before. You are presented with two arrangements of tiles and your job is to make the left arrangement look like the right. Your only means of doing so is to draw a rectangular box and then rotate the tiles clockwise. On top of that there are a myriad of rules, everything from gravity to teleporters to bombs. I was also alerted to the existence of this game from one of the original game's authors which I thought was pretty cool.

Developer: Team Hoi
Release Date: August 1992

Another game where you can tell it's an Amiga game just by looking at it, Hoi hails from the era when developers were filling in the gaps, as well as the era when a commercially viable retail title could be handled by just a few people.

In Hoi you play as a dinosaur braving tests and obstacles in order to find a female partner, which is at least unusual in so far as premises go. I was alerted to the existence of this game from one of the original game's authors which I thought was pretty cool.

Developer: Apogee Software
Release Date: August 3, 1993
Source Code Release Date: August 5, 2018

An Apogee platformer that's a lot like Duke Nukem II but made from the Commander Keen engine, Bio Menace was never as popular as its contemporaries but developed a cult following of its own. You play as Snake Logan, a CIA operative who must save Metro City when it is invaded by mutants.

It was remastered in 2025 but the original was made freeware that same year as well.

  Buy Bio Menace on GOG.com

Developer: PopCap Games
Release Date: December 12, 2003

I'm pretty sure that of all the games on this site, this is the first one I've ever built that I originally played on the iPod. Zuma is essentially a match-3 puzzle game, with the twist being that the tiles are balls rolling down an etched path, and you play as a stationary frog idol thing and shoot matching balls from your mouth, with the goal to be clearing the chain before it can reach tne end of the path.

It has great music and sound design, colorful graphics, addictive gameplay, and works great for both quick diversions as well as extended gameplay sessions. I almost wish you could still use an iPod wheel as a controller.

Zuma was later re-released in an enhanced version dubbed Zuma Deluxe, which is the version you can still get off of Steam to this day, and the version that Zuma Portable uses.