You can now play tons of classic Windows 3.1 games from the '90s online
For retro gaming fans, the Internet Archive is the gift that keeps on giving.
Last year, the Archive started hosting thousands of DOS classics, all playable in the web browser. On Wednesday, the Archive opened up its digital doors to Windows 3.1.
See also: Microsoft's MS-DOS app will make you actually want a Windows Phone
Yes, '90s kids, this means that you too can now spend copious amounts of time playing Ski Free, Pipe Dream and Wheel of Fortune: Deluxe Edition in your favorite web browser.
More than 1,000 Windows 3.1 games are available. The search functionality for the archive isn't great — mostly because many of the games are named based on the filename and not the game name, but it's easy to browse and peruse some of your favorites.
Nearly 300 utilities and business apps are available in the browser too.
The Verge has put together a nice list of some of the best games, and there is a Windows Showcase on the archive to help curate the experience.
Performance in the browser is solid. I played game of Wheel of Fortune: Deluxe Edition and was shocked both by how much digital Vanna White from 1991/1992 looks like Vanna White in 2016, and how slowly paced the whole operation was. Like, did we seriously used to wait that long for the Wheel to spin? (The answer is we did. We absolutely did.)
One of the best games I found in the archive was the little gem Election '92. No, this isn't an election simulator a la the Doonesbury Election Game - Campaign '96 (no joke, one of my favorite games from childhood), instead it's a game where you try to hit candidates with pies before they can vote in the voting booth. You want to be strategic, so if you want Bill Clinton to win, you need to aim for George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot. It's an utterly simple game — but man is it fun.
