Richard DeSteno’s Games

Introduction

Back in the 90s, Richard DeSteno, a blind programmer, created and sold various text-based games for DOS. Now, he’s in the process of converting these excellent games over to Windows, and is making them available for free. He’s also working on new original games as well.

This page allows you to download these games as they’re released.
I wish to thank Richard for his permission to make these games available from this website.

Note: You will need a screen reader to play these games as they’re not self-voicing.

How To Install These Games

All games are compressed as ZIP files. After downloading the game of your choice, you will need to extract the ZIP file to an empty folder (you can put these games anywhere on your hard drive.) Once that’s done, you can, if you wish, create a shortcut that points to the game so you can put it on your desktop. In Windows 7, 8 or 10, here’s how to do this.
Note that the process should be fairly similar with other versions of Windows, except that File Explorer is referred to as Windows Explorer in previous versions.

  1. Bring up File Explorer with Windows+E.
  2. Move to and go into the folder where you extracted the ZIP file to.
  3. Move to the game’s executable file. For this example, we’ll assume that we’re going to create a shortcut for Atlantic City Blackjack, whose executable file is called acbj30w.exe.
  4. Press the Application key (to the left of the Right Control key on most keyboards), or Shift+F10.
  5. From the context menu that appears, choose Create Shortcut.
  6. At the bottom of the list of files, a file called, in the case of our example,
    “Shortcut to acbj30w.exe”
    will appear. I recommend renaming this shortcut so it says something more useful, such as “Atlantic City Blackjack”. This can be done by pressing F2, then typing in the new name and pressing Enter.
  7. Now that you have your new shortcut, you can cut it to the clipboard for pasting on your desktop.

Games Currently Available

The following games are currently available. To download a game, click on it’s title.

  • Talking Draw Poker version 2022.2
    A Windows Draw Poker game that simulates the “jacks or better” option in the video poker machines in most casinos.
  • Tiny Zebras Rock 1.1
    An original and challenging word game, in which you guess letters of the alphabet to solve a three word phrase. The phrases may not make sense and some will be quite humorous, such as “tiny zebras rock”.
  • Dodge City Desperados 2.0
    A text adventure game set in the Old West town of Dodge City, in which you, the martial, must bring the Desperado brothers to justice.
  • Run For President 5.0
    A game in which you run against the computer to become President of the United States.
    Note: Instructions are provided in both RTF and MP3 formats.
    JAWS users should run the game in Administrator Mode.
    NVDA users should enable “Report Dynamic Content Changes” with Insert-5.
  • Atlantic City Blackjack 3.1
    A version of Blackjack that follows the rules set by the New Jersey Casino Commission.
  • Destination Mars 3.1
    A game that presents you with the challenge of successfully travelling from Earth to Mars.

Contacting The Author

If you have any comments or questions about any of the games on this page, please contact Richard De Steno at:
ironrock (at) verizon.net
(The address is written without the at symbol to prevent spamming).