My personal choice would be 3D Cyberpuck! It's a pretty obscure shareware title, but I played it a lot as a kid.

enaiel wrote on 2026-10-06, 13:16:

My personal choice would be 3D Cyberpuck! It's a pretty obscure shareware title, but I played it a lot as a kid.

You're in luck, I negotiated its freeware release last year with author Peter Hinz:
https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/3d-cyberpuck

MrFlibble wrote on 2026-10-06, 13:21:

You're in luck, I negotiated its freeware release last year with author Peter Hinz:
https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/3d-cyberpuck

That is awesome news!

A minor nit: this page is hard to find in Google. Would it be possible to upload it to the Internet Archive as well? Thanks!

enaiel wrote on 2026-10-06, 13:28:

A minor nit: this page is hard to find in Google. Would it be possible to upload it to the Internet Archive as well? Thanks!

The Internet Archive is where I got the full version from in the first place (Peter did not have it anymore):
https://archive.org/details/Cyberpuk_Essex_En … ertainment_1996

Yeah, this one is a bit hard to find with Google, while the DOS Games Archive page of the game comes up on the second page of Google results for me.

Blast Doors probably. Fred's Fiends seems defunct and the game hadn't been updated since 1999. Warheads is similarly defunct. Would be nice if either of those 1997 artillery-but-somethingelse games had some official free'ing up.

@MrFibble

It would be great if there was a published list of authors/companies that have given permission to distribute their games as freeware. I'm thinking of something similar to the one that WorldOfSpectrum used to maintain: https://web.archive.org/web/20130731120924/ht … publishers.html

enaiel wrote on 2026-10-06, 20:23:

It would be great if there was a published list of authors/companies that have given permission to distribute their games as freeware.

I'm afraid that this Wikipedia list is the closest thing you can get ATM.

And specifically for DOS games, you can look at this (originally shareware games) and this (originally commercial). But both lists are not exhaustive.

After some pondering, here's a few more shareware games I wouldn't mind to become freeware:

• Black Zone
• Cold Dreams
• Crazy Drake
• Escape from Delirium
• Flight Action
• Kingdom At War
• Krypton Egg
• Rodge Rock in Retro Active
• Speed Haste
• Valhalla (assuming there was a finished/full version, if only a beta)
• Vinyl Goddess from Mars
• Yendorian Tales 2 and 3

Alien Shooter
AirXonix

I don't remember much of the old shareware games I played, but I really enjoyed these two.

Better friendlier laws. At least 20 year old software should be free in any manner.
It is idiotic you have to buy Doom 1.
Or you still use Windows XP/7. And are more or less a pirate.
And vogons moderators are shaking in their boots.

DOOM apparently got official update, even a new episode.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2280/DOOM_DOOM_II/

Quake got similar treatment.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2310/Quake/

Cyberdyne wrote on 2026-10-20, 19:27:

Better friendlier laws. At least 20 year old software should be free in any manner. It is idiotic you have to buy Doom 1. Or you […]
Show full quote

Better friendlier laws. At least 20 year old software should be free in any manner.
It is idiotic you have to buy Doom 1.
Or you still use Windows XP/7. And are more or less a pirate.
And vogons moderators are shaking in their boots.

What I'd do, is making mandatory to remove all DRM 5 years after release and make it free after 20 years or if license expiration makes it unlawful to continue selling the game.
A lot of racing games get delisted on market places because licenses from car manufacturers expire and the publisher don't bother to extend them. Like for example Race Driver: GRID.