Play AlphaMan (1995) Online

AlphaMan came out in 1995 as part of the MS-DOS Classic Games collection, a time when shareware titles filled disks with strange, ambitious ideas. It was developed by a small team whose name escapes me now, but they built a world that felt genuinely odd and unpredictable, fitting right in with the experimental spirit of mid-90s PC gaming.

You control a lone scavenger, a sort of mutant, navigating through a series of surreal, hazardous ruins. Your main goal is to survive and uncover what corrupted the environment, fighting off twisted creatures with whatever you can find; pipes, broken machinery, anything at hand becomes a weapon. One of the more memorable mechanics is your unreliable sonic attack, which can damage enemies but also has a good chance of stunning you instead if used carelessly. Progress is screen by screen, with a constant need to manage your health and avoid environmental poison spread by a lurking antagonist. The pacing is deliberate, almost tense, because resources are scarce and enemies hit hard. It feels like cautiously picking your way through a dangerous, broken world where every engagement carries risk.

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