Klass of 99 is a freeware DOS PC game I like a fair bit, and it has an excellent soundtrack too.

There's got to be a much better list of these things out there somewhere.

I reckon the original Megazeux deserves a space, and possibly ZZT.

Jorpho wrote on 2021-04-09, 05:02:

There's got to be a much better list of these things out there somewhere.

I reckon the original Megazeux deserves a space, and possibly ZZT.

Best one I could find was on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commerc … sed_as_freeware
But this list has some missing games. Another way I tried was to enter some DOS games sites that offer shareware/demos and filter by license type being freeware.

searches on line find lots of non commercial stuff, indy developed and so on - you could fill a roomfull of CDs with them but quality would drop, still there are some gems in the mix

also, MrFlibble's list should give a few more

it's a really nice idea btw - to have an ISO format like this, a handy way to manage a collection

Street Rod 1, SE and 2 (the about section explains he is the copyright holder since 2012)
https://www.streetrodonline.com/downloads/

Tank Wars by Kenneth B. Morse is my favorite "Scorched Earth" type game. The PC Speaker sound effects are HILARIOUS.

gerry wrote on 2021-04-09, 15:23:

searches on line find lots of non commercial stuff, indy developed and so on - you could fill a roomfull of CDs with them but quality would drop, still there are some gems in the mix

also, MrFlibble's list should give a few more

it's a really nice idea btw - to have an ISO format like this, a handy way to manage a collection

Thanks! The main idea is to focus on quality over quantity, so the list's purpose is not to list EVERY free DOS game out there, but the ones that are worth playing.

Btw thanks everyone for the suggestions so far, they were added to the list.

A thorny question is: just because some of these games can be freely and legally obtained from one source or another, is it necessarily legal to package them up and distribute them with other games? Not that I'm likely to care personally.

Was Epic's Seek and Destroy ever released as freeware? I know Traffic Department 2192 was. That's probably worth including. Jill of the Jungle is free on GOG as well.

Might as well throw in Boppin since most other Apogee games are there. I'm pretty sure that was freeware'd as well.

And there's the Pixel Painters trilogy: Electranoid, Xatax, and Laser Light. Not sure about Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf being freeware, and I'm pretty sure Dig-It definitely isn't. Such a pity the people behind those games have vanished so completely.

usually means you may not modify the game in anyway, you may freely distribute unmodified game. if packaging the game with other games in no way modify the game and its freely distributed than I see no issue.

Id be down for a DVD or CD with all the games on that wiki site. Save me a lot of time. Don't worry about quality let the use decide what they think is quality.

You could get any list of best DOS games, the list of freeware games and keep the games that appears on both lists.

At this moment, the only game I can think of is Skyroads. Maybe I could check my DOSBox games and check how many are freeware.

(BTW, there are free versions of Shadow Warriors both on Steam and GoG. Can we consider it as freeware?)

Were there free versions of Lemmings or Tetris, two old classics?

debs3759 wrote on 2021-04-10, 12:25:

Were there free versions of Lemmings or Tetris, two old classics?

I think the 1986 AcademySoft text mode version was always freeware.

Zup wrote on 2021-04-10, 11:20:

You could get any list of best DOS games, the list of freeware games and keep the games that appears on both lists.

At this moment, the only game I can think of is Skyroads. Maybe I could check my DOSBox games and check how many are freeware.

(BTW, there are free versions of Shadow Warriors both on Steam and GoG. Can we consider it as freeware?)

Good question, but even if Shadow Warrior is freeware, this game uses CD audio tracks so it wouldn’t be 100% complete .

FreeDOOM?

- Liero -> http://liero.be/
- EarthSiege 1 -> https://www.tribesuniverse.com/
- DreamWeb and a lot of other "ScummVM" games (but I don't think they work on DOS anymore) -> https://www.scummvm.org/games/#dreamweb
- Inner Worlds was freeware for a long time. However, now it's on Steam for a price, so it isn't anymore.
- Star Control 2 : The Ur-Quan Masters is freeware. But unlike the original DOS release (Star Control II), it doesn't run on DOS anymore.

List updated, thanks.
Btw, I didn’t add seek and destroy nor any of the pixel painters games as I couldn’t confirm they are freeware. Also removed Inner Worlds from the list.

gaffa2002 wrote on 2021-04-11, 02:00:

I didn’t add seek and destroy nor any of the pixel painters games as I couldn’t confirm they are freeware.

Hmm. Maybe I'm confusing them with something else.

I feel like I'm forgetting a lot of really obvious things. Cash Invaders and Pizza Worm drift quietly into mind.

I expect there's got to be a decent DOS build of Nethack out there somewhere.

Added all the listed games to the CD image (plus a few more like Shadow Warrior), and I could barely fill half of a CD-ROM (around 360mb). Now some questions...
- Where is a good place to upload it?
- Is anyone interested in downloading it, burn to a CD and test if all games are being installed correctly and are working? Preferably on an actual DOS machine

In case anyone interested, here are the instructions (for now I uploaded it here https://easyupload.io/1oaaek):
1- Download the file (it's a zip file)
2- Extract the contents to a folder and burn all folder contents to a CD, the root of the CD must look like this:
CFG
ZIPFILES
RESOURCE
INSTALL.EXE
3-Put the CD into the target PC (or mount in DOSBOX), then execute INSTALL.EXE from DOS, you should see a menu like the one in the picture attached
4-Install the games
5-Run the games

This is not the final version, I still want to add some extras to the CD-ROM like some apps, a readme file, etc... Maybe even the shareware may be added since there are plenty of space left.

Jill of the jungle trilogy is free on gog.