Chronology of Commodore 64 Games

Jon Freeman, his wife Anne Westfall, and Paul Reiche III of future Star Control fame worked on Archon, which was a chess-like strategy game, with a twist; rather than a 'chess' piece taking over the spot, the game launched a 'combat screen' where the two pieces battle it out with different strengths and weaknesses. A chess game that Chewbacca and C3PO played together in the movie Star Wars is listed as an inspiration for this game.

MULE is very historic multi-player party game. It initially had very poor sales, but started gathering a cult following after being heavily pirated. And in 1996, Computer Gaming World named MULE as #3 Best Game of All Time.

Considered to be the first 'construction set' type of game, where players were given all the tools and could build their own game.

This 1981 Apple II port wasn't a big hit on the C64, with its primitive 2600-era graphics and gameplay, but after Muse closes its doors in 1987, they sold name rights over to iD Software, who in 1992, brought out the revolutionary Wolfenstein 3D.

Famed Atari 2600 third-party developed Activision, being pro-active during the video game crash of 1983, shifted the focus towards developing and porting games to the rising home computer market. Their first port was bringing their hit game Pitfall to the C64.

Activision attempt to simulate 3D space combat, with gameplay very similar to the 1981 arcade hit Tempest.

Designed only for the C64 (and later ported for the ZX Spectrum), this Activision game never appeared on the 2600 console.

While Activision started the C64 scene by porting over their best hits from the 2600, Ghostbusters is notable because it was first developed for the C64, and afterward was ported over to the 2600.

Similar to the original hit, this sequel had enchanced gameplay and a board which shifts from time to time, changing the whole strategy around.

One of the earliest graphical text adventure games, it was ported over from its original Apple II version.

More history on this flight simulator and others are found in this list: Fly the Friendly Skies: History of Flight Sims.

By the end of its life cycle, C64 games were usually 2nd rate ports of hit games that were popular on PC-DOS systems, as well as NES and Sega Genesis.