Ariel

Ariel, from 1987, is not a game in the usual sense but a Hebrew courseware package for DOS with small games built into it, among them a domino puzzle. It was authored by Pnina Madan.

The execution is more interesting than the content. In the mid-eighties Hebrew on a PC could not be taken for granted, so the program ships with its own screen font just to get Hebrew text displayed on an ordinary DOS machine. Israeli software of the period could not do without workarounds like this one.

That makes Ariel one of the oldest surviving Hebrew DOS programs with a playable element, and a reminder of an era when Israeli home software was made in small runs, far from the world market. It runs right in your browser on OldGame.cz.