12 Essential DOS Platform Games

Join me as I check out 12 of the must-play platformers for DOS...

Check out the rest of my Essential DOS Games series here:

Video sources:

Rick Dangerous - VICIOGAME Retro Games
Flashback - World of Longplays (played by Mad-Matt)
Commander Keen 4 & 6 - Dosgamert
Prince of Persia - World of Longplays (played by SCHLAUCHI)
Blackthorne - World of Longplays (played by Eino)
Zool - zirkoni88
Zool - World of Longplays (played by RickyC)
Duke Nukem II - ponnupazoozu
Jazz Jackrabbit - Nightmare4K
Jill of the Jungle - World of Longplays (played by V_G_P_ -Conso)
Prehistorik 2 - princejanuszeal
Monster Bash - CuteFloor
Bio Menace - DWTerminator
Alien Carnage - QualityIsNice
Cyril Cyberpunk - CuteFloor

[willmistretta]

DOS platformers were all about the hostile aliens, man. So many aliens.

[Andre-vrul]

I remember playing a bunch of these as a kid. I'd grab them on 3.5" disks from a dollar store, if I remember correctly. They were just "shareware" or demo versions. Monster Bash, Halloween Harry, Jazz Jackrabbit were all awesome and some of my earliest memories on my Dad's 386. Another one I liked when I was young was Hocus Pocus.
Great video!

[MattyStoked]

GENIUS mate. This is the real content here. I'm absolutely gassed that Blackthorne made it onto this list, one of my favourites.

[offrails]

I remember many of these - Commander Keen, Bio Menace, Duke Nukem, Halloween Harry, and Monster Bash among others. Essentially anything from Apogee was guaranteed to be a good platformer. Others I enjoyed include Hocus Pocus (with that game's soundtrack, the OPL chip was rockin'), Captain Comic, Crystal Caves, and Magic Pockets

[stevenschiro]

So many good ones here. Really brings me back to when I was a kid. Some honorable mentions - Secret Agent Man, Scorched Earth, Tyrian, Skyroads, Raptor, and The Incredible Machine

[ftuT]

Nice list. I loved Blackthorne back in the day, I didn't remember it was rotoscoped, now I love it more.

[TheProphecy]

Wow, al those memories. Played a lot commander keen, crystal caves, duke nukem 1 and boulder dash. Thanks for the video!!!

[pirataga]

Really great video! My Christmas present arrived in the mail today, a Sound Blaster Awe 64 for my Windows 98/Ms-Dos PC, I can't wait to play some Dos games with sound :)

[ALiberalVeteran]

Omg Jazz Jack Rabbit was my childhood, I totally forgot about this game. Good on ya.

[karmad.twelve]

I have to thank you... I have been searching and wondering since I was a kid what Dos platformers I had played. I had vague images and many memories, but no names or even aspects of the game that I could recall properly. No longer! You showed me some of these games taht were lost to my childhood memories!!thank you so much! I played Monster Bash a lot!

[YatrikShahisAwesome]

Seriously I've been trying to remember the name of BlackThorne for maybe 10+ years after having played a demo of it when I was a kid... thank you so much!!!!

[swanson]

Loved some of these old DOS games! Haven't played since I was a kid, but it was good seeing someone documenting them. Nice video!

[Dosgamert]

Thank you for respectfully using my Commander Keen footage. Great video.

[PixelSlayers]

So many great games on this list! Commander Keen, Jill of the Jungle, and Duke Nukem 2 give me so many childhood memories. I'll have to try some of these that I'd never heard of!


Ones that I'd also suggest: Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Crystal Caves, and Pharaoh's Tomb.

[mercerthechimp]

Oh wow not thought of some of these for years! Cosmic Cosmo was a classic as well, worthy of the list I'd say. And Secret Agent, I loved that game! Great video mate!

[vlistube]

Wow, I've thought about most of these games over the years but Jill Of The Jungle had completely left my mind for over 2 decades.

[davehedric]

Alien Carnage and cyril cyberpunk were incredible!
Such Nostalgia!

[danbauer]

I loved some of these games as a kid! In particular, Commander Keen, Bio Menace, Duke Nukem, Jill of the Jungle, Halloween Harry. Platformers were my favorites back then and I had NES, Game Gear and a bunch of DOS games.

[RetroGamePlayers]

Great job on this man! Yeah these are all classics for sure! I love old PC gaming.

[GimblyGFR]

Man, the memories ... Great list of amazing games. Prince of Persia was my favorite PC game for a long, long time. Your "Essential DOS Games" playlist keeps getting better and better. Are you looking into racing games and flying sims? There's also some hard to classify games, like Metal Mutant (loved that game, even tough it was hard as nails), and some rather interesting (although mostly not good) arcade game conversions to DOS. Great work, Pete.