I’m pretty sure Doom will be the most popular (and my pick too), but I’ll throw a shout-out to Epic Pinball; that Android table was the best one in the game anyway.
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Who want-a some Wang?!Memory unlocked
“I am da Shaddo wahdiyah. Lessuh fight!”
Monster Bash! It was one of the better-playing platformers on the PC back in the day and I loved the halloween aesthetic.
Don’t remember the name of it but it was a Geometry Wars style shooter where the playing field would tilt as you moved. Played a ton of that game.
Probably Rise of the Triad.
Pretty sure I even bought the full game and never ended up getting very far. I also remember spending a little chunk of time on Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom, but could never figure it out enough to progress very far.
Edit: Another one I was trying to recall, the name was H.U.R.L.
Loved the Hugo games. The jungle one was probably my favorite up to the point where I needed to find out some trivia question about the name of some person’s dog before the time of Internet.
I spent more time with Police Quest, which was similar. I remember trying the Hugo Jungle Shareware multiple times and getting frustrated going back-and-forth, stuck.
Commander Keen!
Jumping around with the pogo stick in Keen 6 was so much fun. I recently found the full game. Was surprised how hard that factory level was. But the music was still how I remembered it.
Jazz Jackrabbit, Jetpack, and Combat Tanks.
brave dwarves 1
To me, it was Raptor Call of Shadows, a very nice shmup where you could buy new weapons between missions
So many great titles in the comments. I’ll add a few of mine:
Jill of the Jungle
Zaxxon
Heretic (Doom clone)
Stellar 7 (can’t recall if shareware or if I just shared it)Heretic was more than a Doom clone, it was developed using a modified Doom engine with the participation of Doom developers. It was a clever game in its own right, adding a lot of fresh elements to the then-budding FPS genre.
All great selections!
I was a fan of all of the Apogee platformers:
Commander Keen,
Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure,
Monster Bash
Also Lucasfilm games:
Loom,
Maniac Mansion
What a great time for PC gaming!
I don’t know if it was their SDK or what, but Epic’s sound design in this era was so good. Jill of the Jungle still stands out to me for that.
Realmz
A couple of people have mentioned Raptor: Call of the shadows, which was an absolute favorite of mine. Skyforce Reloaded is pretty close in terms of gameplay. I wish there were more games out there like Raptor
You try Tyrian? It was like raptor but dialed up to 11 with different planes and an actual storyline :o
There’s a pretty good Android port now! Look up OpenTyrian.
Woah didn’t know about the Android port! Def gonna check it out. Thanks!
I think this question just fried my brain. I don’t even know where to start.
Most played shareware of all time though was probably Transport Tycoon.
Was It shareware? Didn’t know it!
I’m still enjoying It with OpenTTD https://www.openttd.org/
The original Transport Tycoon was distributed as shareware, would have been 95 or 96 when I was playing it off a shareware disc.
Not sure if TTD got a shareware release too, but i got that one as a retail boxed version.
But for 94 or 95 if you didn’t have a shareware version then your game was pretty much doomed.
Spending every lunch hour on the library computer with three friends in 1994 playing this is probably why I didn’t have a girlfriend.
My first internet game was a Scorched Earth-inspired game where you’re in space, on planets, with gravity and stuff. I wish I remembered the name of it, it was amazing.
Great game.
Did this exist before or after worms?
Long before
before or after gorilla.bas? i remember there being even old types of this gameplay.
Def after gorilla
MY DUDE
Save 5 rounds of cash for a death’s head nuke, accidentally blow yourself up when the wind pushes it back in your direction 🤡
I played a lot of 2 games that nobody I’ve spoken to has ever heard of: Mordor the depths of dejenol Exile escape from the pit Both were great, I think exile had been remade by the programmer with a different title too
There was a Mordor 2 shareware as well. The game never got a full release but laid the foundation for Demise: Rise of the Kutan (2000). The rights to the game were sold to Decklin and they released expansions Ascension (2016) and Revenge of the Tavern Keeper (2024). Demos for Demise and the expansions are available at https://www.decklinsdemise.com/
Found out the exile games are now distributed as freeware https://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/exile/winexile.html https://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/productsOld.html
Wow, that’s awesome, thanks!
Scorched Earth
