Abandoned indie games — still available, or lost
This archive holds a frozen list of small studios as they stood around 2007. Working out how many are abandoned indie games still available for sale, and how many are gone, produces information that exists nowhere else, because nobody else kept this particular list.
6
Still sold
3
Publisher dark
1
Domain lost
8
Not established
Why a status check on abandoned indie games is worth doing
Abandoned indie games still available are the exception, because the ordinary way a small game disappears leaves no announcement behind.
A commercial game that leaves a storefront generates a notice. Somebody writes that it has been delisted, the listing is archived, and the fact enters the record. A shareware title sold directly from its author's own website generates nothing at all. The site simply stops answering one day, and there is no announcement because there was no intermediary to make one.
That is the gap this audit fills. The shareware titles here were sold between roughly 2004 and 2010 by studios small enough that the studio and the shop were the same website. When one of those went, everything went with it: the purchase page, the demo, the manual, the patch, and the explanation of what the game was.
The pattern in the results is not subtle. Where a publisher closed or quietly stopped renewing, the game is gone in every practical sense. Where the studio survived, the game is generally still available and easy to find. There is very little middle ground, which suggests that what preserved these games was never the software — it was whether somebody kept paying for a domain.
One row deserves reading twice. A game in this table was sold from its own dedicated address. That address still answers. It serves a betting affiliate site. Nobody withdrew the game; a registration lapsed and was bought by somebody in an unrelated trade. Among these abandoned indie games that is the most complete kind of loss, because the link still looks alive.
Shareware titles still available, or lost
Sorted by status, then alphabetically. Each row carries a button through to its entry.
| Game | Publisher | Genre | First covered | Status | Entry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galaforce | Superior Software | Shooter | December 2005 | Still sold | Read entry → |
| Ravenskull | Superior Software | Arcade adventure | December 2005 | Still sold | Read entry → |
| Repton | Superior Software | Puzzle | October 2005 | Still sold | Read entry → |
| Repton 2 | Superior Software | Puzzle | December 2005 | Still sold | Read entry → |
| Repton 3 | Superior Software | Puzzle | February 2006 | Still sold | Read entry → |
| Titan Attacks | Puppy Games | Shooter | August 2007 | Still sold | Read entry → |
| Dirk Dashing | My Game Company | Platform | September 2008 | Publisher dark | Read entry → |
| Hap-Hazard | Cellosoft | Platform | August 2007 | Publisher dark | Read entry → |
| Mr. Robot | Moonpod | Puzzle adventure | May 2007 | Publisher dark | Read entry → |
| Qwak | Jamie Woodhouse | Platform | December 2008 | Domain lost | Read entry → |
| Bonbon Quest | Oliver Pearl | Platform | September 2006 | Not established | Read entry → |
| Bound Around | Not established | Puzzle | September 2006 | Not established | Read entry → |
| Coin Planets | Not established | Platform | December 2005 | Not established | Read entry → |
| Gibbage | Not established | Arcade | January 2007 | Not established | Read entry → |
| Joystick Johnny | Not established | Arcade | August 2008 | Not established | Read entry → |
| Mars Miner | Not established | Arcade | April 2007 | Not established | Read entry → |
| Rage of Magic 2 | Not established | Fighting | May 2007 | Not established | Read entry → |
| Storked | Not established | Puzzle | January 2008 | Not established | Read entry → |
How to read a status
Five values, each meaning something specific.
- Still sold — the publisher answered and offers the game. Confirmed by direct request, not inferred from a third-party listing.
- Publisher dark — the address exists in the domain name system and returns no response over either scheme. The registration is alive; the server is not.
- Domain lost — the address answers and serves an unrelated party. The registration lapsed and was taken by somebody else, so any surviving link now points at a stranger.
- Freed by author — the author has placed the game beyond sale deliberately, on a statement of theirs rather than on an assumption.
- Not established — the record does not name a publisher and no current source was found. Recorded as a gap rather than filled in.
Questions about the audit
Method, limits, and what the categories mean.
How many of these abandoned indie games are still available?
Of 18 entries, 6 remain commercially available and were confirmed by a direct request on 31 July 2026. Every one of those is either a Superior Software title carried forward by the company still trading on that name, or a game whose studio came through the last two decades intact.
What does a status check actually involve?
The publisher address and, where one existed, the product page are requested directly. The response code is recorded, the redirect chain is followed to its destination, and the page that comes back is read.
That last step is not optional. One address in this audit returns a perfectly healthy response and serves a United Kingdom betting affiliate site that has nothing to do with the game once sold there. A status check that stopped at the response code would have recorded that game as available.
Why do some entries say the publisher is not established?
7 entries carry no publisher attribution because the record does not support one. The pages they are drawn from had a description, a screenshot strip and system requirements, but no studio credit. Naming a plausible studio would make the table look more complete and make it less true.
What is the difference between a publisher going dark and a domain being lost?
A publisher has gone dark when its address still exists in the domain name system but nothing answers on it — the registration is alive and the server is not. A domain is lost when it answers normally and serves somebody else entirely, because it expired and was re-registered.
The distinction matters to anyone trying to find a game. A dark address might come back. A lost one will not, and any link pointing at it is now advertising a stranger.
Does an abandoned indie game becoming unavailable mean it is legal to copy?
No. Commercial unavailability is not a licence. This audit records where shareware titles stand so the record exists, and it links to publishers where they still sell their work. It does not host games and does not distribute them.
How often is the shareware audit repeated?
Statuses on this page were all last verified on 31 July 2026. They are re-checked rather than assumed, and the date on each row is the date of the check, not the date the page was built.