You Can Play These Retro Games in Your Browser
When I was a kid in the 80s, vintage video games were a novelty. Things like Super Mario Bros., Tetris on the Game Boy, and Final Fantasy III had pixel graphics and chiptunes, but they weren’t retro games yet; we just called them video games.
What we didn’t have was access to the Internet and an endless pool of talented game designers putting out fun, cute, and truly well-designed games for free on platforms like Itch.io that you can play right on your web. browser.
Platforms and tools like Unity, PICO-8 and GB Studio have made it even easier for people to create their own games, and many of these tools specifically push designers towards the classic look, feel and gameplay of the ’80s and ’80s . early 90s. With that in mind, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite browser games with an underlying vintage vibe (and also thrown a couple of cool classics into the mix).
Climbing
Created by designer Johan Peitz for PICO-8, the virtual gaming console home to the original Maddie Thorson and Noël Berry’s Celeste , this ethereal platformer is simple exploration encased in a Metroidvania-like structure that can be explored and played through. in less than an hour. After your spaceship mysteriously crashes, you must explore an alien planet in search of the eight spirits and the way home. Featuring charming pixel art, a stunning soundtrack from Vav, and all the labyrinthine level design and ability upgrades you’ve come to expect from a Metroidvania, this game is sure to keep you busy uncovering the planet’s mysteries.
Prince of Persia
What better way to kill time than with a revolutionary classic right in your web browser? Creator Jordan Mechner’s career spans decades, and his influence on gaming history is indefinable. Prince of Persia , which has spawned numerous sequels and reboots since its original release in October 1989, remains a satisfying platformer thanks to its surprisingly fluid rotoscope animation, labyrinthine level design, and brisk two-hour playtime. A landmark in every sense.
Play Prince of Persia at the Internet Archive
Cuphead: Gaming and Watch Edition
Known for its delightful atmosphere, incredible difficulty and perfect platforming, Cuphead is a modern classic. Cuphead: Game & Watch Edition combines that appeal with another retro classic: Nintendo’s original Game & Watch handhelds. “As Game & Watch lovers, we wanted to mix these universes together and do our best to achieve a good result,” explained creators Simon Delavanne and at0mium. This fan-made game combines the original’s signature style with new gameplay and old-school graphics. A fitting tribute and a great way to kill a few minutes while downloading files.
Play Cuphead: Game & Watch Edition on Itch.io
Scoundrel
Do you love Dead Cells, Hades and Spelunky ? They all come back here: Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman’s 1980 classic RPG Rogue . With its unique graphics, deceptively deep gameplay, and genre-defining ideas , Rogue launched generations of games built around trying, dying, and repeating it all. It will test you in a way that many modern games won’t, but as players discovered over 40 years ago, there are few games in the history of the medium that so effectively beg for “one more pass.”
Play Rogue at the Internet Archive
Grimace’s Birthday
A brand new game for the Game Boy Color? In 2023? Published by McDonald’s? …I will take it. In honor of Grimace’s milestone(?) 52nd anniversary, the King of Big Macs has teamed up with Brooklyn-based game studio Krool Toys to create an impressively authentic platformer that looks like it was ripped out of the 1990s. In Grimace’s Birthday you play as the main big, purple, um… creature? as he puts on a helmet, picks up a skateboard and jumps from left to right through several platforming levels. It’s surprisingly fun, especially considering it’s a marketing gimmick. And the kicker? You can actually play the game on the original Game Boy Color if you have a flash drive like the EverDrive. Pretty neat.
Kitsu
Like Ascent , Fáyer & Pato’s Kitsu is designed for PICO-8 and features the same low-resolution graphics. However, unlike Ascent , Kitsu is full of color, combining turn-based exploration with match-3 puzzles to create a unique combination of gameplay that offers more options than most browser games. Billed as “a very short story about saying goodbye,” Kitsu is a delightful combination of pixel art, hummable tunes, clever puzzle design, and the cutest playable fox this side of Tunic .
Blackout
Blackout is a cute-as-a-button horror game with stunning graphics that revives the classic adventure gameplay of The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion with a creepy atmosphere. Dodge corpses, creeping vines and black cats as you lead the teenage witch Marilyn deeper and deeper into the mysterious (and haunted?) mansion. With a simple inventory system, tricky puzzles, Halloween music and a fun story, it’s an enjoyable way to get lost.
(On the other hand, the creator of Blackout FRESH also offers a browser-friendly variant of the WarioWare microgame formula called Assessment .)
Cookies Baking
Like Grimace’s Birthday , Cookies Baker is a modern Game Boy game that can be played on the original hardware or directly in the browser. Created with GB Studio , the incredible open-source Game Boy game creation software, it mixes one cup of Cooking Mama , one cup of Stardew Valley and one tablespoon of Animal Crossing and turns it into an incredibly charming game about saving your town’s winter festival . cookie at a time.
Play Cookies Bakery on Itch.io
Minecraft Classic
Did you know that you can play Minecraft directly in your browser? Isn’t the future amazing? If you’re the only person who hasn’t played Minecraft yet , this version, based on the classic original builds of the legendary game, places you in a procedurally generated world made of pixel blocks and allows you to build to your liking. to your heart’s content. Is the browser version missing features and quality of life improvements from later versions of the game? Certainly! But it’s still Minecraft, right in a Google Chrome tab. And anyway, who needs ray tracing in Minecraft anyway ?