Play Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse Online

Game Overview

Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse is one of those old-school MS-DOS RPGs that just oozes atmosphere. You start as this scrappy merchant’s kid trying to impress a princess—classic setup, but the Arabian Nights twist makes it feel fresh. The first thing you’ll notice? The bazaars are loud, the dialogue’s got actual personality, and you can pick fights or talk your way out of trouble. I remember wasting way too much time just haggling with random vendors.

Combat’s real-time but clunky in that charming mid-90s way—sword swings feel weighty, magic takes forever to cast, and you’ll absolutely get wrecked if you charge into dungeons unprepared. But the progression hooks you. Finding a new spell or finally upgrading your agility stat after getting smacked around by bandits? Weirdly satisfying. Also, the moral choices actually matter—help a thief, and suddenly guards won’t let you into the rich quarter. Oops.

It’s janky by modern standards, but the setting and hybrid gameplay still hold up if you’ve got patience for retro RPGs. Just save often—those genies don’t play fair.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".