What we're building, in order.
Where things stand right now: what you can already use, what we're working on this cycle, and what's queued behind it. The page changes whenever something moves.
What we're building this cycle
All five are about the same thing: making the games run better. Faster, prettier, louder, and playable with whatever you happen to be holding.
- BuildingPlay
Faster emulation
The single biggest thing we can improve. We're rebuilding how games run in the browser so heavier titles hold full speed on ordinary laptops and phones, with steadier frame pacing and far fewer stalls in the demanding moments.
- BuildingGraphics
Proper 3dfx Voodoo support
The late-nineties titles written for a Voodoo card deserve to look the way they did on one. We're getting hardware-accelerated 3D working reliably across that whole generation — Glide-only builds included — instead of falling back to a software renderer.
- BuildingSound
Better, cleaner sound
Higher-quality audio across the board: no crackle under load, correct balance between music and effects, and the synth emulation running at full fidelity rather than trading it away for speed.
- BuildingMobile
An on-screen keyboard for every game
Today only some titles carry a touch layout. We're bringing a proper on-screen keyboard to every playable game, laid out per title so the keys a game actually uses are the keys under your thumbs.
- BuildingControls
Gamepad support everywhere it makes sense
Plug in any controller and play. We're going through the catalog title by title, mapping every game that was built for a stick or a pad — and leaving the keyboard-and-mouse ones honestly marked as such.
Queued for the next cycle
Scoped and prioritised, waiting on the current cycle to wrap.
- Next upSaves
A friendlier save manager
Name your saves, see a screenshot of each one, resume straight from your dashboard, and pass a save state to somebody else.
- Next upMultiplayer
Watch other people play
Spectate a live session, run a watch party, and hand the controls to whoever is next in the room.
- Next upCommunity
High scores and weekly challenges
Opt-in score sharing per game, plus a weekly community challenge. Bragging rights only — nothing that changes how a game plays.
- Next upNotifications
Email notifications
An optional digest when a game you backed goes live, and email for the account events you'd want to hear about with the tab closed.
On the horizon
Agreed in principle, not scoped yet. The order will shift as members tell us what they want.
- LaterContent
Other languages
The site translated properly rather than machine-dumped, starting with Slovak and Czech, then German, Spanish and French.
- LaterOpen data
Open catalog data
The catalog available as open data for anyone building something on top of it — researchers, other archives, fan projects.
- LaterMultiplayer
Tournaments and seasons
Seasonal community tournaments and brackets, built on top of the rooms and the leaderboard.
Already yours to use
Everything below is running in production today — click through and try it.
- Live nowCatalog
The catalog
Thousands of DOS titles, each with its own page: release year, publisher, developer, genre, cover art and screenshots. Browse by genre, year, developer, publisher, setting, theme or perspective — or let the random button pick for you.
See more - Live nowPlay
Play in the browser
Titles marked Playable boot straight in a browser tab — nothing to install, nothing to configure. Every playable title says up front how well it actually runs, and names the known problems where there are any.
- Live nowSound
Period-correct sound
Roland MT-32 and SC-55 for the games that were scored on them, AdLib and Sound Blaster for the ones that weren't, and CD audio playing alongside the game exactly as it did off the original disc.
- Live nowPlay
The big multi-disc games
The heaviest CD-era titles stream instead of downloading in full, so they start in seconds. Multi-disc games change discs from the player's own menu, mid-game, without reloading anything.
- Live nowSaves
Saves that survive
Save and resume from inside the player, plus save states you can jump back to at any point. Free accounts keep one slot per game in their own browser; Supporters get more slots and a copy in their account that follows them between devices.
See more - Live nowOffline
Install it, play it offline
Add the site to a phone or desktop like an app, keep a game's files in your browser, and play with the network off. Anything you did offline syncs when you come back.
- Live nowMultiplayer
Multiplayer over the internet
The games that shipped with LAN play still have it. Open a room, share the link, and play co-op or deathmatch with friends anywhere — no router settings, no third-party tunnel.
See more - Live nowPreservation
Manuals, soundtracks and cheats
Scanned manuals and box art, soundtrack rips with a built-in player, and a cheats and walkthroughs database — all attached to the game they belong to, all searchable.
See more - Live nowCommunity
Community
Reviews and ratings, per-game discussions, forums, collections you can build and share, friends, direct messages and chat rooms. Your library tracks what you're playing, what you've finished, and how long it took.
See more - Live nowProfile
Levels, ranks and the leaderboard
Everything you contribute earns XP, which moves you up through DOS-flavoured ranks. There's a public leaderboard, and level-ups arrive as live notifications.
See more - Live nowPreservation
Ask for a game, and see it arrive
Anything not yet playable can be requested, and the request list is public and ordered by demand. Back a title and you get a notification the moment its build goes live.
See more - Live nowCommunity
Contribute and edit
Submit missing titles, upload manuals, screenshots, save states and soundtracks. Trusted members get editing rights on catalog pages, with every change attributed and reversible.
See more - Live nowMembership
Supporter membership
The archive is free and stays free. An optional membership removes the ads, adds cloud saves and extra save slots, and puts your name on the supporters wall if you want it there. One-off contributions work too.
See more - Live nowPlatform
Run your own archive
Every piece of text on the site, the name, the logo, the colours and the search-engine templates are editable from one admin screen — so the same engine can run an entirely different retro-gaming archive without touching code.