About Color Lines
Color Lines is a puzzle game created in 1992 by Oleg Demin, Gennady Denisov and Igor Ivkin and published by Gamos Ltd. Oleg Demin is credited as its developer and its designer. It is a single-player game, and it was released for MS-DOS and for Windows. The version on DOS.Zone is the MS-DOS one.
Beyond those basics, little is documented. DOS.Zone’s listing calls Color Lines a famous and much-played DOS game, but it doesn’t explain the rules, how a round ends or how scoring works, so the game itself is the best guide to how it plays. Who holds the rights to Color Lines today isn’t clear either.
How it runs in your browser
Play sends you to the Color Lines page on dos.zone, in a new tab. The site starts the MS-DOS program inside js-dos, an open-source take on the DOSBox emulator that runs in a browser and stands in for an old IBM PC. All of the game’s files come from DOS.Zone, so you don’t download anything, install an emulator or need a copy of your own. You also don’t sign up for anything, and DOS.Zone runs no ads.
The listing is titled Color Lines and filed under Puzzle for MS-DOS and the IBM PC. It has a rating of 4.9 from 22 player reviews. Its blurb says the game is free to play without registration and that phones get virtual controls, but it says nothing about which settings are used or whether your best results are saved between visits. If that matters to you, the page itself is the place to look.
Controls and devices
Color Lines is listed for keyboard and mouse. The host doesn’t publish a list of controls, so start the game and use its own screens to see what it expects. As with other DOS.Zone games, click inside the emulator window after it has loaded, so that your clicks and keystrokes reach the game rather than the page around it.
According to the listing, you can also play on a phone with DOS.Zone’s virtual on-screen controls. The game was made for a keyboard and mouse, though, and a desktop or laptop is the better fit. Chromebooks haven’t been confirmed.
Who it’s for
Color Lines is for people who remember it from 1990s PCs and want to find it again without tracking down an old copy or setting up DOSBox themselves. It also suits anyone curious about the puzzle games of the MS-DOS years who is happy to learn a game by playing it, since the host offers little in the way of instructions. It is single-player only, so it’s something to play on your own.
If you enjoy puzzles from that period, The Incredible Machine is a 1993 MS-DOS puzzle game in which you build contraptions, and Arkanoid is Taito’s block breaker in its MS-DOS version. Both run on DOS.Zone in the same way.
Is Color Lines Free, Safe and Official?
Can I play Color Lines online for free?
Yes. DOS.Zone runs the original MS-DOS version free in a browser tab. You don’t download anything, and you don’t need to register.
Do I need the original Color Lines files or DOSBox?
No. DOS.Zone loads the game files from its own site and runs them in js-dos, its browser build of DOSBox, so there’s no emulator to install and no copy of your own to find.
Can I play Color Lines on my phone?
DOS.Zone’s listing says you can, using its virtual on-screen controls. The game was built for a keyboard and mouse, though, so a computer is the better fit.
