Play Treehouse Truants Online

Treehouse Truants is one of those MS-DOS Classic Games releases from the 0 series, a title that quietly slipped onto floppies and hard drives in the early '90s. It was developed by a small team, though the exact studio name escapes me now; it had that distinctly homemade feel common to shareware titles of the era. The game drops you into a suburban neighborhood seen from a kid's perspective, where every backyard is a potential battlefield and every adult is an obstacle to outmaneuver.

You control a group of neighborhood kids trying to reclaim their treehouse from a grumpy property developer. The main objective involves sneaking around, gathering random items like rubber bands, marbles, and discarded toys, then setting up elaborate traps to slow down or distract the adults patrolling the area. Movement is screen by screen, with each yard presenting new hazards and resources to exploit. The pacing is deliberate, almost puzzle like, as you figure out which items work together and where to place them for maximum effect. It feels clever and a little chaotic, like you're getting away with something you shouldn't.

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