The Atari ST was introduced in 1985. It came in versions with 128, 256, 512, or 1024 kB RAM. With its built-in MIDI interface, it was very poular among professional musicians. In the UK, some hit singles were created on an ST.
In regard to games, it was always confined to second place behind the Amiga. The Amiga had better graphics (32 instead of 16 colors in the video mode usually used for games), so many games looked better on it, and in general there were more Amiga than ST games.
But that's just one side of the coin. Though there were less games, it might be argued that there was more variety. Especially the kind of games popular on the PC were more easily found on the ST than on the Amiga.
The Atari ST had the peculiarity of having two different monitors, a low-resolution color one mainly used for games, and a high-resolution black and white one mainly used for office applications. There were, however, a few games, both original and ports, that used the hi-res monitor, too. The monochrome monitor was popular with the authors of freeware and shareware games, especially in Germany. Games marked with [*] ran in both modes, or had versions for both modes.
| Gobang | Gomoku | 86 | |
Mark Overmars |
| Go-Moku | Gomoku | |||
| Hanse | strat | |
[*] | |
| Awari | Mancala | 87 | |
H. Veludo |
| Balance of Power | strat | |
[*] | |
| Ballerburg | strat | |
||
| Bolo | Breakout | |
Meinolf Schneider [*] | |
| Take Two | Shisen-Sho | 89 | |
[*] |
| Columns for Atari ST | Columns | |
P. C. M. van der Arend | |
| STetris | Tetris | |
P. C. M. van der Arend | |
| Alfreds Kistenlager Schiebereien | Soko-ban | 90 | |
Werner Lang |
| Angband | Roguelike | |
Rainer Gehring | |
| Huang Shi | Ishido | |
||
| Oxyd | Puzzle | 92 | |
Meinolf Schneider |
| Pushbox | Soko-ban | |
Werner Lang | |
| ACC-Tris | Tetris | |
Gilles Gallée | |
| Tuzzle | Puzzle | 93 | |
Anthony Watson |
Among the monochrome Atari ST games, those by Meinolf Schneider certainly stick out. They were nearly the only commercial ones, nearly the only ones ported to other platforms. Oxyd was available for about every platform that existed at the time, and Bolo was at least remade for DOS and Mac.
Of the thousand games on this website, more than a hundred were available for the Atari ST, too much to list on one page. Below I list only those games that were ST-only, those that have a special relevance for the history of ST gaming, and those where I especially mention the ST version in the article. You can also look at a gallery of the Atari ST screenshots used on this website.
| Reversi (GEM) | Othello | 85 | |
Christophe Bonnet |
| Dungeon Master | RPG | 87 | |
|
| Take Two | Shisen-Sho | 89 | |
|
| Mata Hari | Arcade | |
Loriciels | |
| JLTetris | Tetris |  |
Jaakko Lyytinen | |
| Treasure Trap | Adventure | |
||
| Valgus | Tetris | |
James R. Glenn | |
| Cromo | MaxIt | 90 | |
Harald Breitmaier |
| Drops | Ishido | |
Harald Breitmaier | |
| Soko | Ishido | |
Harald Breitmaier | |
| Valgus² | Tetris | |
James R. Glenn | |
| Chain Reaction | Columns | 91 |  |
Paul Margetson |
| Phoenix PD Columns | Columns | |
David Tierney | |
| Klatrix | Columns |  |
Mats Högberg | |
| Match-It! | Shisen-Sho | |
Steffen Fischer | |
| Escape | Shoot-'em-up | 92 |  |
Fire-Soft |
| Dynabusters | Arcade | 93 | |
STE only |
| Bomtris | Tetris | 94 | |
Fire-Soft |
| Pipetris | Tetris | |
||
| Tautology | Shisen-Sho | |
Falcon only | |
| Take It | Ataxx | |
Challeil Nicolas | |
| The Ultimate Arena | Fighter | |
STE only | |
| Cameleon | Filler | 95 | |
Toni Lönnberg |
| Bobby the Hippie Ghost edition | Soko-ban | |
||
| Awele | Mancala | 96 | |
GEM |
| Stolly | board | |
Falcon only | |
| Running | FPS | 97 | |
Falcon only |
| Marbles | Puzzle | 98 | |
Fredrik Olsson |
| Penta | Puzzle | 05 | |
Matthias Arndt |
| Nuclear Waste Dump | Tetris | 06 | |
Matthias Arndt |
