Note: This page is designed as a summary of what Home of
the Underdogs is, and what it aims to be. For more information
on its history, please go to the site
history page.
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Home of the Underdogs is a non-profit site dedicated to the
preservation and promotion of underrated PC games
(and a few non-PC games) of all ages: good games that deserve
a second chance after dismal sales or critical reviews that
we feel are unwarranted. By nature, our criteria for choosing
games to be honored here are subjective. However, we believe
that our collective experience (many of us started gaming in
late 1970s) allows us to be confident of our choices: we've
played many of the best and worst games ever made. Therefore,
we believe that our
"Top Dog" tag signifies a truly
remarkable classic, while at the other end of the spectrum our
"Real Dog"
tag signifies marginal underdogs we think you really should
avoid (most of them are here only because a number of visitors
pleaded us for them, anyway).
Although the site is non-profit in that we will never charge
anyone for access to the site's content, we do need to keep
the lights on. To that end, we have established a
Patreon through
which you can donate to keep Home of the Underdogs alive.
Thank you for your support!
Home of the Underdogs, while not an
abandonware site per se (since our
aim is to pay tribute to all underdogs, both new and old), has
always supported the abandonware idea. We believe that
providing detailed information and reviews about games that
have been abandoned by their publishers is a valuable
service to the gaming community because these games are in
danger of disappearing into obscurity. We no longer offer games
for download, but we still want you to find and play these games
for the same reasons we always have - because every game in
this collection deserves to be remembered and enjoyed. Today,
we provide you with detailed information about each game in the
collection so that you can make confident decisions about what
underdog to enjoy next - and hopefully, give you some hints as
to where you can find it.
For more information on our stance on abandonware, please read
this section of our FAQ.
One of the larger goals behind Home of the Underdogs is to
make it a friendly and dynamic community of classic game
collectors, oldies lovers, game designers, and anyone else
interested in the history of PC computer games; to be a place
for sharing nostalgia, ideas, and information on underrated
games. To this end, everyone is welcome to interact with
the site via
Discord .
You can get involved, find a 'new' game to play, suggest new
underdogs to add to the collection, or just reminisce about
the good old days of PC games with other old-school gamers.
We also belong to the group of "die-hard" gamers who long for
the golden days of PC gaming, when games were more original and
fun to play than today's hordes of mundane, "me-too" titles
marketed by businessmen who abhor risking the corporate purse
strings on innovative but unproven titles. We long for the days
when designers were treated as "artistes" of their medium,
entrepreneurial pioneers who worked without the fears of not
meeting a Christmas deadline or making games that aren't
compatible with 3D cards. We hope that games featured on this
site will help inspire a new generation of game designers to
reach back into the past and rediscover what great games are
truly made of. To that end, we are honored to host the
Scratchware Manifesto, a statement of purpose written by several
designers who are dismayed with the state of today's gaming
industry. We encourage everyone to read it and spread the word
around :)
Home of The Underdogs, as with most other websites, is
always under construction-- there are enough underdogs
for us to honor to distract us from our day jobs for
quite some time, not to mention exciting features we haven't
yet implemented. Visit often :)
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