My cousin and I used to play this for hours on his Amiga, along with Settlers and Monkey Island. I was probably only 7 or 8.

I don’t think we ever completed it, but some bright spark has given us a second chance by creating dune2js.com, this web-based emulation of the game. It’s absolutely insane that I’m now able to play the entire game in my phone browser. Controls are a little clunky (you miss all the refinements that came with later RTS games, especially unit controls), but it actually doesn’t hold up too badly!

I love the idea of all these classic games becoming as playable and as embeddable as a YouTube video. Can we get Lemmings next? Update: yes.

The rules are simple. You have six attempts to guess a 5 letter word. With each attempt you are shown clues as to whether your letters are in the right place or if they’re not used at all (kind of like hangman).

The crucial mechanic is scarcity: there’s only one word a day, and everybody gets shown the same word… which instantly makes it a competitive social game despite having no in-built league table or multiplayer.