How to Browse and Filter Games on DOS haven

Updated

DOS haven (doshaven.eu) is a catalogue of 21st-century DOS games — homebrew and modern releases for MS-DOS. To find something specific, use the Filter games panel on the site: it lets you narrow the catalogue by genre, by release year, and by presentation mode. The catalogue currently lists 265 games, so filtering is the practical way to browse rather than scrolling the whole list.

What the page gives you

The homepage is organised into three main areas:

  • Last 6 games added — the newest entries, each with a release date. Recent examples include Star Cadre: Team Command (October 2, 2026), FOKOOM (September 7, 2026), Penult (August 31, 2026), Skellywave (August 18, 2026), Destroyer (August 17, 2026), and Europa Panic! (August 15, 2026).
  • Latest comments — recent activity from the community, including suggestions for games to add and notes about releases.
  • Filter games — the main browsing tool, with three filter groups.

The three filter dimensions

Genre

Genres are listed as expandable categories. The available options are:

Genre Genre
Action Platformer
Adventure Puzzle
Beat'em up Racing
FPS Roguelike
Interactive Fiction RPG
Other Simulation
Sport
Strategy

Each genre has a [+] marker, meaning the list expands to show sub-options or matching entries.

Released (year)

Release years run from 2001 onward, listed one year at a time (2001, 2002, 2003, … 2016, and continuing). This is the filter to use if you want, for example, only games released in a particular year rather than the whole modern-DOS era.

Presentation

Two presentation modes are offered:

  • Graphics
  • Textmode

This distinguishes games that render with graphical output from those that use text-mode display.

How to actually narrow things down

  1. Open the Filter games section on the homepage.
  2. Expand a genre with [+] and select the one you want (for example, RPG or Roguelike).
  3. Add a Released year if you want a specific vintage.
  4. Add a Presentation mode if you care about graphics versus textmode.
  5. The game list updates to match your combined selection.

Combining filters is the point: genre alone may return a large set, but genre + year + presentation gets you to a short, readable list.

Practical notes

  • The Last 6 games added block is the fastest way to see what's new without filtering at all — useful if you just want to sample recent output.
  • The Latest comments section doubles as a discovery channel: contributors post suggestions for games that may not yet be listed, and developers announce releases there.
  • If you're looking for a specific title rather than a category, the filter panel won't search by name — you'd need to scan the relevant genre or year instead.
  • The site also links to Tools, Sources, Suggestions, and About pages, which are worth checking if you want to submit a game or understand where the catalogue data comes from.