8 Essential DOS Puzzle Games
onaretrotip
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In this episode of Essential DOS games, we’re looking at 8 fantastic puzzle games…
Let me know your favourites in the comments!
Let me know your favourites in the comments!
You can find some of the games mentioned at these sites:
Video sources:
Tetris – MS-DOS Friends
The Incredible Machine 2 – Lingyan203
Atomix – Keukan Sah
Chip’s Challenge – barbarianbros
Supaplex – World of Longplays (played by Luty)
Lemmings – Shortmandesigner
Pipe Mania (aka Pipe Dream) – Marco Rocha
Bioshock hacking – Joseph DeSoto
The Lost Vikings – Daniel’s Game Vault
If anyone uses GOG for their old PC games, you can support the channel by using my link. Costs you nothing extra but gives me a little kickback.
05.09.2021
Lotus? hello?
Nice list, although I truly miss "Logical" (Rainbow Arts) and "Pushover" here… Played those for hundreds of hours back in the day… ;-)BTW: Available on AbandonwareDOS!
dotc, aaow, td, and several public domain games!!! 😉
Just awesome – thank for making this video
I always thought Super Tetris on Dos was my favorite variation of Tetris of all time.
I remember Elasto Mania. I spent many hours on that game.
MAX METEOR ACELERATION EXCALATION !!! EXCELENTE GAME 90'S
"Heartlight" is my all time favourite dos puzzle game
Damn…I’ve been looking for one puzzle game that I used to play as a kid. The memory is so vague that I can’t even begin to describe it, but I’ll know when I see it. Doesn’t appear to be here
Where's Hexxagon? Better than most on the list IMO.
Who is this "Rube Goldberg"..? You're a Brit' aren't you, surely it should be a "Heath Robinson device"..? 🙂
One of the best things about Chips Challenge is trying to speedrun it and get the fastest times you can get.
Supaplex is a total blast from the past. I had completely forgotten about it. Was probably too young when I played it to enjoy it properly.
Beautifully done video you deserve more subs
Hmmm, are you ever going to do a video on ("classic") Mac "hidden gems"..? I ask as, in spite of its reputation, the Mac received a fair few ports from other platforms, and had a – maybe surprising… – number of games developed for it either exclusively or first – after all, Bungie began as a Mac-exclusive developer/publisher…
Another great video Pete loving this Dos series as I’m a novice and your showing some awesome looking games.
I loved chips challenge on the Atari lynx
Lemmings used take nicked my mates mouse to go round another mates house just to play two players on lemmings before I owned the Amiga played a bit Lost Viking’s music on the Amiga is brilliant … never got on with atomino think you just taught me how to play it … cheers pete
Nice video bro.
Great list Pete. One of my semi-favourites is Pushover. I'm not the biggest puzzle game fan, but I played Pushover quite a bit for the funny animation and the toppling of dominoes. That was a thing in the early nineties!
Lemmings and Lost Vikings for me 😉
You seem to have missed off The Fool's Errand by accident 😉
I believe the choice of traditional and classical music in Lemmings was to avoid copyright problems. The original music composed for the game is also excellent, as well as adaptions of tunes used in other Psygnosis games (Awesome, Menace, SOTB). I would include Fury of the Furries, another puzzle platformer that found its way to DOS after seeing an original release on the Amiga.
Nice one Pete, I know how much effort you put into these, always enjoyable.
Why Gobliins is not in the list?
I totally forgot about The Incredible Machine! Those games are such gems. That said, I definitely clicked to hear that Lemmings love, great list!
Thank you for your amazing work.
Lost Vikings was released on SNES, DOS, Amiga, and Genesis in the same year (1993).
What's up with all the atoms?
Lemmings, it was ported to every system under the sun, except it is not on Steam.. Also the game suffers from to many levels where it's "use blocker at start to single out one or two lemmings, complete the level with those, blow up bomber".
Hahaha, did you say, shitty shitty bang bang haha!!
Next list: 84 essential dos adventure games
Edit: should still be hard to narrow down lol
God Of Thunder is also a great DOS puzzle game.
I'm absolutely loving this series. Keep up the great work!
The Incredible Machine! I used to love playing that over my mate's house when we were kids!
Ah Lemmings, one I borrowed off my mate a few times as I never owned it.
Great stuff yet again dude 🙂
The Incredible Machine 2, just looking at it gave me a headache. Probably something to do with a video I've just watched on Twitter, two marbles moving through a maze in the same fashion, the fraction of a seconding timing blew my tiny mind.
Supaplex isn't one I've seen before, it seems to take Balderdash and add another layer of sophistication.
nearly at 10k matey!!! man lost vikings was great!!
Enjoiying this series; the crazy world of MS DOS 🙂 Just started getting into the platform over the last few years, and love just picking a game at random and experiencing the general madness, so many bizzare games. Lemmings has to be the pick of these for me. Lost Viking is ace too, but only played on SNES. That Incredible Machine looks quality – mentally stimulating. Will crack out DOSBox for a look
Excellent video – after adventure/point-and-clicks, decent puzzle games have always been my main love in gaming.
* The Incredible Machine – to this day I adore this. The whole sandbox, experimental, logical-but-try-the-insane… whatever you'd call it is indeed incredible, and the physics engine is pretty much spot on. Played the whole series, and the various spin-offs; and must get it running in DOSbox some time soon. A few franchises have tried to do something similar since but often flaw themselves by going 3D. I've always felt the TIM series deserves far more recognition than it does.
* Chip's Challenge – again I played this for hours; have actually never played the DOS version but had it on the old Best of Windows Entertainment package (where it looked better), eventually completing the whole thing, including the various hidden levels. I loved the variety of level types in the game – some were flat-out "race against the clock" type efforts, whilst others relied far more on carefully thought-out procedures to to beat the complex level. The worked-on but unreleased sequel was finally released a couple of years ago; wondering if it would capture me in the same way as the original or not.
* Supaplex – haven't heard of this one, but it sounds very me. 5:17 you're a Repton fan – mass kudos! Before my PC days I was a BBC B (still own/love it), spent HOURS playing Repton. Even used to draw him on my school books. Anyway, Supaplex looks more similar to some of the late-BBC similar-engine-to-Repton such as 'Bone Crusher', or maybe Repton 4 on the final release, 'Repton Infinity' (the only Repton release BTW that I never liked much). The Beeb game 'Xor' also has some similarities. Either way… I might have to check this one out.
* Lemmings – deservedly legendary. I played this eary on, on the behemoth old 386 my dad bought home from work in the early 1990s, and spent many hours frustratedly trying to find how to crack some of those more insanely hard levels. (I later had an enhanced Windows version which went wandering years ago and frustratingly have never been able to find another copy of). Although it lost some of the simplicity of the original, I also loved Lemmings 2, and the several Holiday (Christmas) Lemmings, which I think(?) were released as magazine covers, were also good fun. Later Lemmings entries struggled a bit, again the series deciding it needed to go 3D did not help it any; I think the later on Lemmings Revolution was the only one I really got into; it was decent enough in itself but hardly matched the original. Shame this once-great series is now laying dormant though, it feels very overdue to find a new lease of life.
* Pipe Mania – have played this on several formats over the years (DOS, Windows… also I vaguely recall a BBC clone of it). I wouldn't rank it up with the likes of Lemmings, TIM or Chip's Challenge, but it was great fun – especially the Windows version that I'd load up for a quick go on my work PC at lunchtime (when I did have time to hack away at a level or two of Chip's Challenge) back in the day.
* The Lost Vikings – interesting… have never played it, some elements appeal to me; I'm not so much of a platform fan but the puzzle elements sound good. I've always mentioned it on your Top PC Adventure games comments, but if you haven't already you might like playing the Gobliiins games, which a puzzle-adventures but have similar three-characters-with-different skills elements.
Trying to think what other vintage DOS puzzlers I used to like playing… I seem to recall I liked 'Rescue Rover' (which was a kinda arcade puzzler) for a while, though I never had the full version and the graphics were near seizure-inducing!!
Too bad that you didn't use my footage! It's much sharper and smoother! 🙂 Great video!
Another game I would add to my personal list: The 7th Guest.
CHIP'S CHALLENGE! Finally, I found it 🙂
Too bad you did not include "Pushover", my alltime favorite puzzle game for DOS.
As others pointed out Pushover is missing. You cant remember them all. 🙂
Also missing and one of my favourites is Brainstorm.
The first 30 levels are pretty easy, sort of learn as you go, but after that it gets better and better.
There are 120 levels in total if i remember.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAqPzXuesBQ
Does anyone remember that old puzzle game where the guy with a karate suit is trapped in a room full of cubic rocks, the objective is to place the cubes correctly so that he can reach the door situated on top of the room??
Some of these like The Incredible Machine, Pipe Mania and The Lost Vikings I still need to get around to trying. Lemmings of course is a classic although best played on Amiga.