Mac Source Ports

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: JAM Productions
Release Date: October 28, 1994
Source Code Release Date: July 8, 2013

Despite being overshadowed by DOOM, the original Blake Stone game must have sold well enough to merit a sequel, or at least not poorly enough to break from Apogee's "shareware game, retail sequel" pattern, we have Blake Stone: Planet Strike.

Hailing from the golden age of PC gaming when a sequel could come out a year later the game doesn't deviate too much from its predecessor, essentially being more content with a few code tweaks and added features.

The bstone source port is derived from the original source code, which Apogee released in 2013 to promote the Apogee Throwback Pack, a trend we should absolutley support seeing more of in the future.

  Buy Blake Stone: Planet Strike on GOG.com

Developer: JAM Productions
Release Date: December 3, 1993
Source Code Release Date: July 8, 2013

After the success of publishing Wolfenstein 3-D, Apogee licensed the engine from id Software and hired JAM Software to make a new game with it. Giving it a sci-fi setting instead of WWII, they added multiple features to the engine like one-way doors, health stations, teleporters, in-game informant characters, and more.

The game then had the incredibly unfortunate timing of being released literally one week before DOOM. It's not the only game with this distinction but it's the game industry equivalent of being a movie that released on the same day as Star Wars.

Still, the game did enough business to merit a sequel and developed a following, especially amongst those whose computers weren't strong enough to run DOOM.

The bstone source port is derived from the original source code, which Apogee released in 2013 to promote the Apogee Throwback Pack, a trend we should absolutley support seeing more of in the future.

  Buy Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold on GOG.com

Developer: Impressions Games
Release Date: November 2, 1999

Pharaoh uses the engine from Caesar III but moves the setting to Ancient Egypt where you oversee the building of a city to ensure citizens are fed, employed, healthy and protected from diseases, disasters and wars. An expansion pack titled Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile followed in 2000, and modern digital retailers sell the pair as a bundle entitled Pharaoh + Cleopatra

Since the game was derived from the engine to Caesar III a source port called Akhenaten was forked from the Augustus source port to run the game.

  Buy Pharaoh on GOG.com

Developer: Westwood Studios
Release Date: November 22, 1996

Released about a year after the original game Command & Conquer: Red Alert is a prequel that features fighting an aggressive Soviet Union trying to take over Europe. Doubling down on the modern warfare, rocking music and cheesy cutscenes of the original, this sequel is a fan favorite.

OpenRA can download a subset of data from a freeware release to get going quickly, but installing the full game's data from a disc is also supported.

Developer: Intelligent Games
Release Date: September 4, 1998

A partial remake of Dune II, itself considered the earliest example of the mold that later RTS games would follow, Dune 2000 was initially released for PCs in 1998 and the PlayStation in 1999.

Dune 2000 is not currently available via any digital distribution sales channels but OpenRA can download a subset of data to get going. Installing the full game's data from a disc is also supported.

Developer: Westwood Studios
Release Date: September 26, 1995

Command & Conquer is a pioneering real-time strategy game set in an alternate history where two globalized forces fight for control of a mysterious resource. Featuring modern warfare, rocking music and cheesy cutscenes, there's a reason it's a cult classic to this day.

OpenRA can download a subset of data from a freeware release to get going quickly, but installing the full game's data from a disc is also supported.

Developer: id Software
Release Date: June 22, 1996
Source Code Release Date: December 21, 1999

Quake is a first-person shooter, the first in the Quake series. The vkQuake port was derived from the QuakeSpasm Spiked port and uses Vulkan on macOS by way of MoltenVK.

  Buy Quake on GOG.com

  Buy Quake on the Humble Store

Developer: New World Computing
Release Date: March 3, 1999

Heroes of Might and Magic III is another 4X turn-based strategy game and is one of the best games in the series.

Although my aim is to host signed and notarized game bundles on Mac Source Ports, the VCMI project recently added Apple Silicon support and is sufficiently complex that at this time I'm going to link to their work. We may host a notarized version in the future.

Because the app bundle is not notarized, on first run you may run into issues. The shortest answer is to right-click on the app bundle (VCMI.app) and select Open. The long answer is here.

  Buy Heroes of Might and Magic III on GOG.com

Developer: osu! development team
Release Date: September 16, 2007
Source Code Release Date: September 16, 2007

I'll be honest, I'm not quite sure I understand this game. At the very least I'm unable to get through the easiest tutorial level. I'm not even sure on how I stumbled across this game in the first place. But apparently for the last fifteen years a fairly hardcore community has been writing, maintaining and updating a free game on the Internet called osu! which is a rhythm game where you click on things on the screen to the beat of a song.

Whereas you used to have to go through various hacks to get the game running on Mac, a more recent rewrite titled osu!(lazer) features proper Mac support, including signed and notarized builds for Apple Silicon.

So anyway, check it out and see what the youngin's are into these days.