I created a simple little microservice that hosts a tree of ZIP files to load in DOSBox using Emularity.
I gave it an old archive of the Total DOS Collection and set loose at https://dostest.drastical.tech/ a few years ago, as a way to test abusing CloudFlare's caching ability.
Some titles worth mentioning:
- Oregon Trail - has been around forever. It doesn't really need any introduction. If you had anything from an Apple II onward at school, you were probably subjected to this.
- DOOM 2 - I have vivid memories driving home with my brother, clutching the jewel case on the ride home (CD-ROM! A rarity in the early days.)
- Quake - I'm starting to think that QuakeSpy was the peak of online gaming. Change my mind.
- MegaRace - I have vivid memories of this being demoed at big anchor stores at the mall. Multimedia vibes.
- Coaster - Another one that I played the hell out of on the store demo computers. The wireframe view and the first-person ride were so advanced at the time.
- Beneath a Steel Sky - Classic text adventure. I never really messed with it, but it's historic.
- BattleChess 4000 - I need to hunt down a link to the manual to pass the 'copy protection'... or a crack...
- Sam and Max: Hit the Road - The comic, the show, the games were all hilarious. You should check them out.
- SimCity 2000 - I was surprised that they did a DOS version of this.
- SimEarth - This always looked super fascinating, until I finally got a hold of it. It's kind of obtuse, moreso than the other Sim titles of the time.
- Duke Nukem 3D - I came here to chew ass and kick bubble gum
- Ragnarok
- Grand Theft Auto I - Play this while you wait for GTA6.
- NetHack - Possibly the most influential roguelike of all.
- Angband - This is a great roguelike
- MadTV - This is a really cool simulator game where you operate a TV station. I remember finding it on a BBS back in the day.
- CyberBall
- The Incredible Machine
- The Incredible Machine 2
- Crawl - Another good roguelike
- Skate or Die!
If the text-based roguelikes like NetHack are your thing, you might want to check out the "XTerm" app at https://os.drastical.tech/. You can get a real session with access to Ancient Domains of Mystery, Crawl, Cataclysm, OmegaRPG, NetHack, Moria, ZAngband, and more.