Play old MS-DOS games on Internet Archive

The Game Room
1

You can now play nearly 2,400 MS-DOS video games in your browser.

I just found out about this. It’s really just running DOSBOX through your browser, but it’s all the games collected in one place. Some games don’t run great because of the increased speed (the monsters are way too fast in Castle Adventure), but overall pretty fun old-school PC gaming.

I just played Sopwith 2. I don’t remember any of the controls and there isn’t any help screen so I’ll have to old-school trial-and-error the controls out, but isn’t that part of the fun?

2

Oh boy…

Warlords II…Bruce Lee…so many others. Can’t wait to have time…

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To me, what stands out is that it’s actually DOSBox. This sort of thing has existed before, but it’s never been powered by DOSBox. It’s always been full PC emulators running FreeDOS. Somehow, when looking up JavaScript emulators up not that long ago, I missed out on em-DOSBox.

Unfortunately, it seems like the Internet Archive didn’t read up on the settings you need for games older games. A lot of games used the CPU speed to determine game speed, which means you need to decrease the cycles in DOSBox to run on a modern computer.

You can do that yourself by repeatedly pressing Ctrl-F11, but that’s not going to be obvious to users. Neither will be how to control the games–some basic instructions would be nice.

Also “Press Spacebar to start” is misleading. Clicking to start will focus the your controls on the game.

And, wow. A lot of games don’t have their copyright protection fixed. They’re an archive, so they are legally allowed to work around that. I think I’m going to contact the main guy to let him know.

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Note, I know what I said above comes across as complaining, but I was really trying to inform.

Here’s another bit: the password for Indy Games Racing seems to always be “race,” despite what part of the manual it asks you to read.

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Anyone have issues changing the controls? I tried playing Dune 2, but there’s no mouse click: you move around with the move and hover over something you want to click then push Enter on the keyboard. I haven’t found a way to change the controls

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CRAP.

I have wanted to play Castle Adventure again ever since we got a too-fast-for-it computer in 1991. The fast monsters problem has always thwarted me… and still does, apparently.

Crappity crap crap. Why do I care about DOS emulators if I can’t play Castle Adventure?

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Read a little lower in the thread. You can slow the emulation down by pressing Ctrl-F11. You’ll need to press it multiple times until it’s the right speed.

I can’t get the DOXbox Control map (Ctrl-F1) to work, but you can try it.

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I took a look at this the other day. It seemed odd that they have a big DOOM graphic on their main page, but DOOM wasn’t one of the games listed…

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I don’t have the link handy but they have a similar archive of playable old 80s-90s arcade games.

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Some of them are porn games…yes!! :smiley:

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Okay. But this will require much experimentation. Cuz 'till I get it right, every time I’m wrong, the instant I go into a room with a monster I will be dead.

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I got it to open up, but I can’t click or change anything :confused:

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Bah, their version of Dune 2 still has the copy protection!

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Ok, anyone wanna share some favorites? 2400 is a lot to comb through. I’ve never even heard of “Castle Adventure,” so I’ll be sure to check that out later on, keeping in mind the cntl-f11 tip. ETA: I do remember reading someone saying M.U.L.E. is up there…