How to play Amstrad CPC games

CPC Game Reviews has reviewed more than 2,500 games released on the Amstrad CPC. About 2,000 CPC games are available on My Abandonware!

The CPC was very popular in the UK, France and Spain in the second half of the 80s. It was sold with its own tape deck (CPC 464) or disk drive (CPC 664 and 6128), and our games come as tape or disk images.

Amstrad CPC emulators

WinAPE is our pick on Windows, ACE-DL and Retro Virtual Machine on Mac and Linux. All three are free.

Lots of emulators are available to play CPC games on your modern computer. You can pick one of those:

• WinAPE: the recommended Amstrad emulator on Windows, emulates the full CPC range with very good precision. Its last version dates from 2016, but it still runs fine on Windows 10 and 11.
• ACE-DL: a very accurate CPC and CPC Plus emulator for Windows, Mac, Linux and Raspberry Pi, still updated in 2026.
• Retro Virtual Machine: a nice-looking emulator for Windows, Mac and Linux, which also runs the ZX Spectrum and the MSX.
• Caprice32: a light, open source emulator for Windows, Mac and Linux.

You can find lots of other emulators on the list at CPC Wiki, including generic emulators like MAME, a solid program updated on a regular basis.

Running CPC games in WinAPE

Insert the disk image in drive A, then type run"disc" or |cpm. If neither works, list the files with cat and run the right one.

For this tutorial, we'll only cover WinAPE. Steps required in other emulators are similar most of the time.

• The game archive may contain several versions of the game. Unzip files until the file is not a zip archive.
• Click on File > Drive A: > Insert Disk Image, then select the disk image (.dsk).
• Try to run the game by typing run"disc", run"disk" or |cpm, then press Enter. Type the double quote " with SHIFT + 2, and the vertical bar or pipe | with SHIFT + [: WinAPE maps the keys by their place on the CPC keyboard.
• If this doesn't work, type cat and press Enter to get the list of files on the disk image.
• Try to guess the right file to use to run the game. Most of the time it's easy.
• Type run"filename" with filename replaced by the file name listed with the cat command. Check the video for a clear explanation.

Additional help is provided on the official website.

Running Prince of Persia in WinAPE.

Loading a tape game

Tape games come as .cdt files. Insert the tape image, type |tape then run", and the game loads just like it did from a real cassette.

Many CPC 464 games only exist on tape. In WinAPE, insert the tape image from the Tape part of the File menu. Then type |tape and press Enter (not needed on a CPC 464, which starts in tape mode). Type run" and press Enter: the CPC asks you to press PLAY, press any key and the tape starts. Loading takes a few minutes at the real speed; most emulators can load faster, in their tape options.

Amstrad PCW games

The PCW was Amstrad's office computer, sold with a printer and a word processor. A few games were made for it, like Colossus Chess 4.

The CPC emulators don't run PCW software. Use JOYCE, made by John Elliott, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, or MAME. PCW games come as disk images (.dsk). Most of them start the computer by themselves: insert the disk, reset the machine, and the game loads.

I need help!

We do not provide support for running abandonware games. The CPC community is still very active, in English, French and Spanish.

Ask on the CPC Wiki forum, which also has guides for every emulator. CPC-Power, a large database of CPC games, has notes on how to start many of them.

First written by hand, and brought up to date in October 2026 against each program's own documentation and, where it exists, its source code. Game counts and file sizes come from our own catalogue. The update was drafted with the help of an AI assistant and checked by hand before publishing. If something here is out of date, tell us.