Mac Source Ports

Developer: Runing with Scissors
Release Date: September 24, 1997
Source Code Release Date: December 29, 2016

Postal is... something. It is simultaneously controversial and accepted. It is dark and sinister and yet also a parody not to be taken seriously. It's a satire of violence in pop culture while also being a violent piece of pop culture. A mass murder simulator handled with all the gravity of an angstly teenager doodling in a school notebook, when playing the game you're not sure to what extent you're witnessing a commentary on how society views violence, or if you're contributing to it.

It is also a fascinating slice of late 1990's game development outside of the major corporations and, given that the developer still exists today and still makes new entries in the series, an interesting example of long term success. They've made multiple sequels, spin-offs, remakes and even a movie.

When Runnning with Scissors released the source code to the public in 2016 they jokingly-not-jokingly said they wanted someone to port it to the Sega Dreamcast. Someone did. I figured if it can run on the Dreamcast it should also run on Mac and it does, officially, but only as a 32-bit Intel app.

So here it is. Back on the Mac again. Note that the assets it uses are the original version's, which is free on Steam and GOG, but not the Redux version. It should work with the files from either the Mac or Windows versions of the game.

  Buy Postal on GOG.com

  Buy Postal on the Humble Store

Developer: Thalion Software
Release Date: April 11, 1993
Source Code Release Date: May 7, 2023

The Commodore Amiga was one of those computers where it jumped ahead of the competition by several miles, but then stayed there for a long time and got surpassed by the competition. I think this is why there's such a distinctive look to the games the platform and why it was so accessible to smaller game designers, the types we'd call "indie" today.

Ambermoon is an RPG for the Amiga that really looks like an Amiga game. It was the second part of an unfinished trilogy. Although the original game's source has been released, the source port we're pointing to is Ambermoon.net which like it sounds is a recreation of the original game in C#/.NET (the original game was Amiga-specific Assembly language and isn't a great candidate for portability).

In addition to being able to download it below from the developer's GitHub page, the game is also available on itch.io as a "Name your own price" download in case you want to support or tip the developer.

Developer: Bullfrog Productions
Release Date: March 28, 1997

Famed Amiga developer Bullfrog released this second entry in the "Theme" series (following Theme Park) which allowed players to design and run a hospital. The name Theme Hospital may not make a ton of sense but the game was ridiculously popular. The CorsixTH project is one of the more thorough and well organized source port projects active today, and Mac Source Ports is handling the Mac build.

  Buy Theme Hospital on GOG.com

Developer: Piranha Bytes
Release Date: November 29, 2002

Gothic II is an action role-playing game set in a medieval fantasy world and follows the nameless hero from the original game as they explore a variety of environments, complete quests, and choose their faction to play as either a warrior, rogue, or mage, each with their own unique skills and abilities. Gothic II features an open-world design whose story and characters are highly regarded for their depth and complexity, and the game has amassed a devout following over the years.

The game spawned an expansion pack, Gothic II: Night of the Raven and a re-release of the two under the name Gothic II: Gold Edition.

The OpenGothic project has recreated the engine for Gothic II, and we have assembled an app bundle build for your convenience.

KNOWN ISSUE: When saving a game and typing in a name for the save, the text you are entering may not be visible. Hitting Return should save the game anyway and your title will appear next time you want to load.

  Buy Gothic II on GOG.com

Developer: 2015, Inc.
Release Date: January 22, 2002

This is a neat little surprise. The Medal of Honor series started out its life as a first person shooter for the original PlayStation, a console not known for FPS titles, and whose game concept and story came from Steven Spielberg of all people. The series has seen over a dozen games including a reboot but in 2002 they released the third game, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, for the PC on the engine we would now call id Tech 3, with some help from the ÜberTools enhancements made by Ritual Entertainment.

While the source code was never released, the OpenMoHAA project appears to have taken ioquake3 as well as the Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 SDK (which used ÜberTools) and managed to make the game playable on modern systems. The result is not entirely unlike the Xash3D FWGS project.

The game supports multiplayer as well as the expansion packs, though the options for video configuration are limited at this time and the expansion packs need to be launched from the command line. If you're familiar with editing the configuration files for Quake III: Arena however, it's not much different than that. For rhese reasons though, we're labeling this Early Access. Later on we may add a launcher menu to simplify things.

NOTE: if you downloaded an earlier version there is a chance your save file might not work with this newer version. If that is the case and you want to continue from your saved game you can find previous versions here.

  Buy Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on GOG.com

Developer: Impressions Games
Release Date: September 30, 1998

Caesar III is a city building game set in ancient Rome where you take on the role of a Roman governor building up a city and keep your citizens happy and safe.

There are two reverse engineered source ports, Julius and Augustus. Julius aims to be as faithful to the gameplay of the original, to the point of maintaining saved game compatibility. Augustus is forked from Julius and adds several quality of life improvements and gameplay addtions, though at the expense of saved game compatiblity. Mac Source Ports has builds of both, so you can choose whichever one you prefer.

  Buy Caesar 3 on GOG.com

Developer: Rebellion Developments
Release Date: May 13, 1999
Source Code Release Date: 2001

There are many games named Aliens versus Predator, but this one is from the greatest year in the history of gaming: 1999. It had a sequel and a remake but there's still a cult following for this entry in the series.

The source was released in 2001 and ported to Linux by icculus shortly thereafter, but recently the NakedAVP project put in the work to upgrade the code and get it running on the Mac.

Note that on online services like Steam and GOG the game is listed as Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000, which includes the expansion pack content as well.

  Buy Aliens versus Predator on GOG.com

Developer: Altered Orbit Studios
Release Date: May 31, 2024
Source Code Release Date: May 31, 2024

It's impressive that the DOOM runs om everything. It's more impressive that the GZDoom project has turned the DOOM engine into an extremely versatile piece of software. There's a smattering of standalone games out there running on some variant of DOOM or GZDoom and one of the most amazing recent entries is Selaco.

Back when this game came out I and a few others tried building it for the Mac and there were graphical issues due to modifications made to the OpenGL renderer. More recently, CrowEater figured out the trick to building and packaging it for the Mac with MoltenVK to use the Vulkan renderer by default and the result is being able to play this frenetic boomer shooter on the Mac.

Note that this is an Early Access game both in the sense that the game itself is Early Access on Steam and also that this port is a work in progress. One known issue is that the opening splash screen is pink. Another is that sometimes when you die in the game you don't see the proper death animation but rather something that looks like an in-game error. But look past these and you'll find an excellent game to blast your way through.

NOTE: If you previously had the 0.89-BF version installed you will need to update the data files to 0.90 as the relationship between Selaco's code and its data content is very strict, however upgrading may break your saved games so you may want to finish whatever run you're on before upgrading.

Developer: Chris Sawyer
Release Date: October 15, 2002

Another game from the mind of Chris Sawyer, RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 shares the same pixel art style and hardcore interface as his other games.

  Buy RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 on GOG.com

  Buy RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 on the Humble Store

Developer: K-D Lab
Release Date: May 21, 2004
Source Code Release Date: June 4, 2021

Perimeter is a mid-2000's RTS game set in a science fiction universe in the distant future. The game has a focus on terraforming, energy production, and the ability to protect your installations with an energy barrier, the namesake Perimeter.

The original game Perimeter was released in 2004 and an expansion pack, Emperor's Testament, was released in 2005. The developer released the source code to the game in 2021 and released a version on Steam in 2024 called Perimeter: Legate Edition. All three are compatible with the source port.

Note that at this time the Mac support from the source port is considered experimental so I'm labeling this one Early Access. It runs on Apple Silicon Macs with the latest macOS but I have had limited ability to test it elsewhere so your mileage may vary. If you can't get it to launch you can report a bug to me. If the game runs but something in it doesn't function correctly, the developer's GitHub repo might be a more useful spot to report it.

  Buy Perimeter on GOG.com

  Buy Perimeter on the Humble Store