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rwv/chinese-dos-games

★ 10,169PythonAudience · generalComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

TLDR

An archive of 1,898 classic Chinese DOS games from the 1980s and 1990s, all playable in any browser at dos.lol, with a Python script for downloading the full collection locally.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((chinese-dos-games))
    What it is
      1898 DOS games
      1980s and 1990s
      Browser playable
    Tech
      Python script
      IPFS distribution
    Use Cases
      Browse at dos.lol
      Local download
      Contributions
    Audience
      Nostalgia seekers
      Gaming historians
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Browse and play classic Chinese DOS games from the 1980s and 1990s directly in your browser without installing anything.

USE CASE 2

Download the entire game archive to your own machine for offline access using the included Python script.

USE CASE 3

Contribute a missing Chinese DOS game to the collection by opening an issue or submitting a pull request.

USE CASE 4

Explore the history of gaming culture in China during the DOS era.

Tech stack

PythonIPFS

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

No setup needed to play in browser, run download_data.py only if you want a local copy.

No formal license, some files may be under existing copyright and are hosted for preservation purposes only.

In plain English

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.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I want to download the entire chinese-dos-games archive locally. Walk me through running download_data.py and what files it produces.
Prompt 2
How do I find a specific Chinese DOS game by name in the dos.lol collection and play it in my browser?
Prompt 3
I know a Chinese DOS game that is missing from the rwv/chinese-dos-games collection. How do I submit it as a pull request following the contributing guide?
Prompt 4
What is IPFS and why does the chinese-dos-games project use it to distribute game files instead of a normal web server?
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