Play Talisman - Challenging the Sands of Time Online

Game Overview

Talisman: Challenging the Sands of Time is one of those MS-DOS games that somehow sticks with you—even if you played it decades ago. You start off picking a character (I always went for the rogue, but the mage has some wild spells), and suddenly you're scrambling across this weird, magical desert trying to piece together a broken talisman before time runs out. The clock is always ticking, and every turn feels like a gamble: do you fight that scorpion monster for loot, or sneak past it and risk getting ambushed later?

The pixel art has this rough-but-charming style, and the turn-based combat is simple but surprisingly tense. What I love is how unpredictable it gets—sometimes you’ll open a chest and find gold, other times it’s a trap that saps your strength. And the rivals? They’re not just dumb AI; they’ll steal your treasures if you’re not careful. It’s the kind of game where you lose three times in a row, then suddenly pull off a crazy comeback because you took a risk on some cursed artifact that paid off. If you’re into old-school strategy with a side of chaos, this one’s a blast.

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