Mac Source Ports

Developer: Ion Storm
Release Date: May 22, 2000

Yes, it's that game. Daikatana is the game known as much for its infamous advertising and the drama of its backstory as the content of the game itself.

Released in 2000 after a protracted (for the time anyway) three-year development cycle, John Romero's Daikatana was an ambitious game from an enthusiastic new developer that was unable to live up to the hype due to numerous issues at launch. Although some problems were addressed in patches, the Dallas branch of developer Ion Storm was unable to survive despite its pedigree (though their Austin branch would soldier on for a few more years).

Theorizing that the game's issues were not unsalvageable, a group of individuals online contacted the right people and were able to obtain the source under a non-open source license. Years later the Daikatana 1.3 Project released the first version of their attempt at fixing the game's issues with the years of what we've learned about game design as a guide (also the game used id Tech 2, same as Quake II).

For those of us who followed the 1990's Dallas FPS gaming scene, Daikatana has always been a fascinating case study in ambition versus expectations. Many critics agreed that there were genuinely good parts of the game bogged down by issues in the lesser sections. It's interesting to think what the gaming landscape might have been like had the game succeeded.

I first learned about this project via this excellent GManLives video and, upon learning that the game was also ported to Linux and Mac (the original release was Windows-only), I went to go download the Mac version to discover that it was years out of date and unplayable as a 32-bit executable. The reason was simple and a familar one: the (probably one) person who maintained it left the project years ago.

So, I wrote to the project and was able to get the source to work on it. I've been picking at it for months now and I finally got it working on Intel 64-bit as well as Apple Silicon. As mentioned above the source code is not available to the public but I intend to keep this one up to date.

  Buy Daikatana on GOG.com

  Buy Daikatana on the Humble Store

Developer: Midway Games
Release Date: April 4, 1997

OK, now we have all the DOOM games (pre-2016 anyway).

The port of DOOM to the original PlayStation, handled by Midway Games, was such a hit that when it came time to port the game to the Nintendo 64, Midway wanted to do something other than just port the same game again, and wanted to take advantage of the features of the hardware. The result is the most bizarrely unique entry in the series.

DOOM 64 does use the DOOM engine, or at least it started with it, but they took a hard left. The game does use the original game's enemies with reworked assets from the original game, but the levels are new and the engine takes place of the then-novel idea of hardware accelerated graphics. Notably, the N64 could do colored lighting and they use that all throughout the game.

Reactions were mixed. Gamers wanting the original game were disappointed, gamers wanting something new were intrigued, and the critics were mostly just confused. Until recently, it was an obscure anomaly entry in the series with a cult following.

A source port project called Doom64 EX came out, whose goal was to recreate the game using the N64 ROM image for data. In the runup to DOOM Eternal, id and Zenimax decided to resurrect the game and the creator of the source port worked with Nightdive Studios to make a version that ran on PC as well as consoles. In the years since, the Doom 64 EX+ project came out which enhances the original source port as well as gives it the ability to use the data from the PC port of the game. The commercial release did not come to the Mac, but working with the author we're able to offer a Mac release here.

So fire it up and pretend like you're playing on your big CRT having just rented it from Blockbuster Video. It's definitely a unique experience.

  Buy DOOM 64 on GOG.com

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: 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: New World Computing
Release Date: October 1, 1996

Heroes of Might and Magic II is a 4X turn-based strategy game. Ranked once by PC Gamer as the sixth-best game of all time it features resource building, new factions, skills, and a single-player campaign.

  Buy Heroes of Might and Magic II on GOG.com

Developer: id Software
Release Date: December 2, 1999
Source Code Release Date: August 9, 2005

Quake III Arena is a first-person shooter, the first in the Quake series to focus on multiplayer. The ioquake3 source port has been maintained since the original source code release in 2005, featuring a Universal 2 app that supports Intel 64-bit and Apple Silicon as well as a Universal 1 app that can support Intel and PowerPC Macs going back to Mac OS X 10.6

  Buy Quake III: Arena on GOG.com

  Buy Quake III: Arena on the Humble Store

Developer: id Software
Release Date: December 9, 1997
Source Code Release Date: December 22, 2001

Quake II is a first-person shooter, the second in the Quake series. Yamagi Quake2 is the most mature and advanced port actively being maintained.

  Buy Quake II on GOG.com

  Buy Quake II on the Humble Store

Developer: Infocom
Release Date: 1977

True story: I'm old enough to have experienced the concept of buying Commodore 64 software in toy stores as a kid. I'll never forget, it had to have been at the tail end of the C64's lifecycle and I'm going through this bargain bin and finding nothing interesting, and then I stumbled across Zork I, in what had to be one of the slim case budget re-releases. I had no idea what it was other than I had read the name in Family Computing magazine.

I go home, fire it up, it takes forver to load... and then only when I'm sitting at a text prompt does it hit me that this is a game without graphics. No wonder there were no screenshots. I'm pretty disappointed. I'm also bored and have nothing better to do so I start playing it.

What follows is legit one of the best gaming experiences of my life. There's a reason this game is famous - provided you're willing to give it a shot the premise, writing, puzzles and exploration concepts will lure you in, and the anachronistic hodgepodge of elements makes for an eclectic universe. You descend downwards into the ruins of the Great Underground Empire, now an abandoned world.

The backstory has been told at length elsewhere but the short version is that some computer scientists at MIT made a text adventure game called Dungeon to run on their mainframe and got the idea to make a company to sell versions of it for home computers. It proved to be too big to fit on the computers of the era so they split it up into a trilogy of games called Zork. The company was named Infocom and they are beyond legendary in retro gaming archaeology circles.

The technology the games ran with has been reverse engineered so well that an entire community has spawned programming languages and toolkits to make new games with it and there's hundreds of text advantures as a result, including an annual contest that's been running for decades now.

So unlike most games on this site there are literally dozens of options to play these games, and the current best in breed for the Mac is called Splatterlight.

  Buy Zork I: The Great Underground Empire on GOG.com

Developer: Infocom
Release Date: 1980

So as mentioned, the original gamed Dungeon was split into three games, so the second game picks up pretty much where the first game left off, diving deeper into the intricate underground realm of the Great Underground Empire as you navigate through mystifying chambers and encounter enigmatic characters. Unravel the secrets of the all-powerful Wizard of Frobozz, solving perplexing puzzles and overcoming perilous obstacles along the way.

  Buy Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz on GOG.com

Developer: Infocom
Release Date: 1981

The last in the original trilogy and the last part of the original Dungeon game, this game features the deepest portion of the Great Underground Empire where you must face the wrath of the vengeful Dungeon Master as you journey through a treacherous underworld filled with ancient secrets and unimaginable dangers. Traverse through stunning landscapes, unravel mind-bending puzzles, and confront cunning adversaries in your quest for redemption. Might as well keep going if you've gone this far :)

  Buy Zork III: The Dungeon Master on GOG.com