chinese-dos-games

This is an archive of classic Chinese DOS games, collecting 1898 titles that were popular in China during the DOS era of personal computing. DOS was an operating system that preceded modern Windows, and these games represent a significant chunk of what Chinese players grew up with in the 1980s and 1990s. The project hosts all of them at a website called dos.lol where anyone can browse and play them directly in a browser.

The repository itself is mostly a data and tooling layer. A Python script called download_data.py lets you pull the actual game files to your own machine if you want a local copy. The game list is published at dos.lol/games. Files are also distributed through IPFS, a peer-to-peer file network, which means the collection can be accessed even if the main website goes down.

The project is open to contributions. If you know of a Chinese DOS game that is not yet in the collection, you can open an issue or submit a pull request following the contributing guide. The maintainer is transparent about the copyright situation, acknowledging that some of the game files may be covered by existing copyrights, and offers to remove any specific file if a rights holder contacts them.

This is primarily a preservation and nostalgia project, not a software tool you would build on top of. Its value is in keeping these games accessible and playable for people who remember them, or for anyone curious about the history of gaming in China. The source code for the accompanying website lives in a separate repository linked from this one.