Play Bar Games Online

Bar Games came out in 1989 as part of the MS-DOS Classic Games collection from Accolade. It was a simple, straightforward collection of bar-themed mini-games, the kind of thing you'd load up on a beige box PC when you had a few minutes to kill. It didn't try to be anything more than a digital version of the distractions you'd find in a real pub, which was pretty common for the era.

You don't control a character so much as you directly manipulate the games themselves. The objective is just to play and get a high score in each activity. You'll use the keyboard to throw darts at a wobbly, pixelated board, trying to compensate for its strange arc. You'll line up shots in a top-down pool game that feels surprisingly accurate for its simplicity. You'll also rapidly tap keys to win an arm wrestling match, your on-screen hand trembling with the effort. The pacing is quick, letting you jump between games easily, though some, like the darts, can be frustratingly difficult to master. It feels like a genuine, if slightly janky, recreation of wasting an afternoon in a dimly lit bar.

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